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Common  sense  about  women  / 


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COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT  WOMEN 


Works  by  T.  W.  Higginson 


Common  Sense  about  Women    .    .    .    .  $1.50 

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New  York:  LONGMANS,  GREEN,  &  CO. 


COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT  WOMEN 


BY 


THOMAS    WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON 

AUTHOR    OF    "ATLANTIC   ESSAYS,"    "  YOUNG    FOLKS*    HISTORY    OF   THE    UNITED 
STATES,"    "  HINTS   ON   WRITING   AND   SPEECH-MAKING,"    ETC. 


NEW     YORK 
LONGMANS,   GREEN,   AND   CO. 

1S94 


Copyright,  1881, 
By  TnOMAS  AVENTWOllTII   HIGGINSON 

Ali  rights  resetted. 


^(o5o 


ilHg  ILittle  Baug]^ter  fHargartt. 


TABLE  OF  CONTEXTS. 


PAGE 

I. 

r, 

Too  MUCH  Natural  History  . 

7 

II. 

Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Buckle 

11 

-III. 

Which  is  the  Stronger  ? 

.      16 

IV. 

The  Spirit  of  Small  Tyranny 

.      18 

V. 

"  The  Noble  Sex  "    . 

21 

-VI. 

Physiological  Croaking 

24 

VII. 

The  Truth  about  our  Grandmother 

.      28 

VIII. 

The  Physique  of  American  Women 

33 

-IX. 

"Very  much  Fatigued" 

.      37 

X. 

The  Limitations  of  Sex 

40 

(iEempcrament 
XI. 

43 

The  Invisible  Lady 

45 

XII. 

Sacred  Obscurity     . 

49 

-  XIII. 

"Our  Trials"   .... 

52 

XIV. 

Virtues  in  Cojimon 

55 

XV. 

Individual  Differences 

60 

XVI. 

Angelic  Superiority 

63 

XVII. 

Vicarious  Honors     . 

66 

XVIII. 

The  Gospel  of  Humiliation 

09 

XIX. 

"  Celery  and  Cherubs  " 

73 

XX. 

The  Need  of  Cavalry    . 

77 

XXI. 

"  The  Reason  Firm,  the  Temperate  Will  ' 

80 

XXII. 

"  Allures  to  Brighter  Worlds,  and  leads 

the  Way  "      . 

83 

TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

XXIII. 

,          .                   «7 

Wanted  — Homes 

89 

XXIV. 

The  Origin  of  Civilization  . 

93 

XXV. 

The  Low- Water  Mark   . 

96 

XXVI. 

"Obey" 

99 

XXVII. 

Woman  in  the  Chrysalis 

103 

XXVIII. 

Two  AND  Two     .... 

106 

XXIX. 

A  Model  Household 

109 

XXX. 

A  Safeguard  for  the  Faimily 

112 

XXXI. 

Women  as  Economists     . 

116 

XXXII. 

Greater  includes  Less  . 

120 

XXXIII. 

A  Co-Partnership     . 

123 

XXXIV. 

"  One  Responsible  Head  *'     . 

.    127 

XXXV. 

Asking  for  Money  . 

.    131 

XXXVI. 

Womanhood  and  Motherhood 

135 

XXXVII. 

A  German  Point  of  View      . 

139 

XXXVIII. 

Childless  Wojien     . 

142 

XXXIX. 

The  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  . 

MOTI 

lERS 

,    145 

it)OriCt|p 149 

XL.    Foam  and  Current 151 

XLI.     "In  Society" 155 

XLII.  The  Battle  of  the  Cards     ....    159 

XLIII.    Some  Working-Women 163 

XLIV.  The  Empire  of  Manners        .        .        .        .167 

XLV.      "  GiRLSTEROUSNESS  " 171 

XLVI.  Are  Women  Natural  Aristocrats  ?  .        .175 

XLVII.  Mrs.  Blank's  Daughters       .        .        .        .178 

XLVIII.    The  European  Plan 181 

XLIX.     "Featherses" 185 

L.     Some  Man-Millinery 189 

LI.  Sublime  Princes  in  Distress        .        .        .    192 


TABLE   OF  CO:^ TENTS. 


education 

PAGE 

.    197 

LII. 

"  ExPERniENTS  " 

.    199 

LIII. 

I>'TELLECTUAL   ClXDERELLAS      . 

.    203 

^  JAY. 

Foreign  Education  .... 

.    207 

-    LV. 

Teaching  the  Teachers  . 

.    210 

LVI. 

"  CUPID-AND-PSTCHOLOGY  " 

.    213 

'  LYII. 

Medical  Sciexge  for  Women 

.    216 

'  LYIII. 

Sewing  in  Schools  .... 

.    219 

-  LIX. 

Cash  Premiums  for  Study     . 

.        .    223 

LX. 

Mental  Horticulture    . 

.    226 

<<?mplo)ament 

.    231 

^    LXI. 

"  Sexual  Difference  of  Emplotmeni 

D"     .    233 

-    LXII. 

The  Use  of  One's  Feet  . 

.    237 

,  LXIII. 

Miss  Ingelow's  Problem 

.    240 

'LXIV. 

Self-Support      .        .        .        . 

.    245 

LXV. 

Self-Supporting  Wives  . 

.    248 

LXVI. 

The  Problem  of  Wages 

.    251 

LXVII. 

Thorough    

.    255 

LXVIII. 

Literary  Aspirants 

.    259 

LXIX. 

"The  Career  of  Letters"  . 

.    263 

LXX. 

Talking  and  Taking 

.    266 

LXXI. 

How   TO   SPEAK    in  PuBLIC 

.        .    269 

principles  of  <!5otemmnit 

.    273 

LXX  II. 

We  the  People         .... 

.    275 

LXXIII. 

The  Use  of    the   Declaration  of   ] 

[nde- 

pendence         

.    278 

'    LXXIY. 

The  Traditions  of  the  Fathers  . 

.    281 

LXXV. 

Some  Old-Fashioned  Principles  . 

.    285 

LXXVI. 

Founded  on  a  Rock 

.    288 

LXXVII. 

"The  Good  of  the  Governed"   . 

.    292 

LXX  VIII. 

Ruling  at  Second-Hand 

.    296 

-       LXXIX. 

"  Too  Many  Voters  already  "     . 

.    299 

TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

.Suffrage  . 

303 

LXXX. 

Drawing  the  Line    . 

305 

LXXXI. 

For  Self-Protection 

309 

LXXXII. 

Womanly  Statesmanship 

312 

LXXXIII. 

Too  Much  Prediction 

31G 

LXXXIV. 

First-Class  Carriages    . 

320 

LXXXV. 

Education  via  Suffrage 

324 

-   LXXXVI. 

"  Off  with  her  Head  !  " 

328 

Lxxxvir. 

Follow  your  Leaders     . 

331 

LXXXVIII. 

How  to  make  Women  understand  Poli- 

tics    ...... 

335 

LXXXIX. 

"  Inferior  to  Man,  and  Near  to 

Angels  " 

339 

<©bJEctions  to 

.Suffrage 

343 

XC. 

The  Fact  of  Sex 

345 

XCI. 

How    WILL   IT   RESULT? 

349 

XCII. 

"  I  HAVE  All  the  Rights  I  want 

5> 

352 

XCIII. 

"Sense  Enough  to  Vote"     . 

356 

XCIV. 

An  Infelicitous  Epithet 

359 

XCV. 

The  Rob  Roy  Theory      . 

303 

XCVI. 

The  Votes  of  Non-Combatants 

368 

XCVII. 

"  ]NL\NNERS    REPEAL   LAWS  " 

372 

-     XCVIII. 

Kilkenny  Arguments 

375 

-       XCIX. 

Women  and  Priests 

379 

c. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Bugbear 

382 

CI. 

Dangerous  Voters   . 

386 

CII. 

How  Women  will  legislate 

389 

-     cm. 

Warned  in  Time 

393 

CIV. 

Individuals  vs.  Classes  . 

396 

cv. 

Defeats  before  Victories     . 

400 

PHYSIOLOGY 


"Allein,  bevor  unci  nachdem  man  Mutter  ist,  ist  Man  ein 
Mensch;  die  miitterliclie  Bestiniraung  aber,  oder  gar  die  ebe- 
liclio,  kann  nicht  die  menscliliche  iiberwiegen  oder  ersetzen, 
sondern  sie  muss  das  Mittel,  nicht  der  Zweck  derselben  sein." 
—  J.  P.  F.  Richter:  Levana,  §  89. 

"But,  before  and  after  being  a  mother,  one  is  a  liuman 
being;  and  neither  the  motherly  nor  the  wifely  destination 
can  overbalance  or  replace  the  human,  but  must  become  its 
means,  not  its  end." 


C03IM0^^  SEXSE  ABOUT  WO'Sim. 


TOO   MUCH  NATURAL   HISTORY. 

Lord  Melbourne,  speaking  of  the  fine  ladies  in 
London  who  were  fond  of  talking  about  their  ailments, 
used  to  complain  that  they  gave  him  too  much  of  their 
natural  history.  There  are  a  good  many  writers  — 
usually  men  —  who.  with  the  best  intentions,  discuss 
woman  as  if  she  had  merely  a  physical  organization, 
and  as  if  she  existed  only  for  one  object,  the  produc- 
tion and  rearing  of  children.  Against  this  some  pro- 
test may  well  be  made. 

Doubtless  there  are  few  things  more  important  to  a 
community  than  the  health  of  its  women.  The  Sand- 
wich-Island proverb  says  :  — 

"  If  strong  is  the  frame  of  the  mother, 
The  son  will  give  laws  to  the  people." 

And,   in  nations   where   all   men    give    laws,    all   men 
need  mothers  of  strong  frames. 

Moreover,  there  is  no  harm  in  admitting  that  all  the 
rules  of  organization  are  imperative ;  that  soul  and 
body,  whether  of  man  or  woman,   are  made  in  har- 

7 


8  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

mony,  so  that  each  part  of  our  nature  must  accept  the 
UmitatioDS  of  the  other.  A  man's  soul  may  yearn  to 
the  stars  ;  but  so  long  as  the  body  cannot  jump  so  high, 
he  must  accept  the  body's  veto.  It  is  the  same  with 
any  veto  interposed  in  advance  by  the  physical  struc- 
ture of  woman.  Nobody  objects  to  this  general  prin- 
ciple. It  is  only  when  clerical  gentlemen  or  physio- 
logical gentlemen  undertake  to  go  a  step  farther,  and 
put  in  that  veto  on  their  own  responsibility,  that  it  is 
necessary  to  say,  "Hands  off,  gentlemen!  Precisely 
because  women  are  women,  they,  not  you,  are  to  settle 
that  question." 

One  or  two  points  are  clear.  Every  specialist  is 
liable  to  overrate  his  own  specialty ;  and  the  man 
who  thinks  of  woman  only  as  a  wife  and  mother  is  apt 
to  forget,  that,  before  she  was  either  of  these,  she  was 
a  human  being.  "Women,  as  such,"  says  an  able 
writer,  "  are  constituted  for  purposes  of  maternity  and 
the  continuation  of  mankind."  Undoubtedly,  and  so 
were  men,  as  such,  constituted  for  paternity.  But  very 
much  depends  on  what  relative  importance  we  assign  to 
the  phrase,  "as  such."  Even  an  essay  so  careful,  so 
moderate,  and  so  free  from  coarseness,  as  that  here 
quoted,  suggests,  after  all,  a  slight  one-sidedness,  — 
perhaps  a  natural  re-action  from  the  one-sidedness  of 
those  injudicious  reformers  who  allow  themselves  to 
speak  slightingly  of  ' '  the  merely  animal  function  of 
child-bearino."  Hisjher  than  either  —  wiser  than  both 
put  together  —  is  'that  noble  statement  with  which  Jean 
Paul  begins  his  fine  essay  on  the  education  of  girls  in 
"  Levana."  "  Before  being  a  wife  or  mother,  one  is  a 
human  being  ;  and  neither  motherly  nor  wifely  destina- 


TOO  MUCH  NATURAL   HISTORY.  9 

tion  can  overbalance  or  replace  the  human,  but  must 
become  its  means,  not  end.  As  above  the  poet,  the 
painter,  or  the  hero,  so  above  the  mother,  does  the 
human  being  rise  pre-eminent." 

Here  is  sure  anchorage.  We  can  hold  to  this.  And, 
fortunately,  all  the  analogies  of  nature  sustain  this 
position.  Throughout  nature  the  laws  of  sex  rule 
everywhere  ;  but  they  rule  a  kingdom  of  their  own, 
always  subordinate  to  the  greater  kingdom  of  the  vital 
functions.  Every  creature,  male  or  female,  finds  in  its 
sexual  relations  only  a  subordinate  part  of  its  existence. 
The  need  of  food,  the  need  of  exercise,  the  joy  of  liv- 
ing, these  come  first,  and  absorb  the  bulk  of  its  life, 
whether  the  individual  be  male  or  female.  This  Antiope 
butterfly,  that  flits  at  this  moment  past  my  window,  — 
the  first  of  the  "season,  —  spends  almost  all  its  existence 
in  a  form  where  the  distinction  of  sex  lies  dormant :  a 
few  days,  I  might  almost  say  a  few  hours,  comprise  its 
whole  sexual  consciousness,  and  the  majority  of  its 
race  die  before  reaching  that  epoch.  The  law  of  sex  is 
written  absolutely  through  the  whole  insect  world.  Yet 
everywhere  it  is  written  as  a  secondary  and  subordinate 
law.  The  life  which  is  common  to  the  sexes  is  the 
principal  life;  the  life  which  each  sex  leads,  "as 
such,"  is  a  minor  and  subordinate  thing. 

The  same  rule  pervades  nature.  Two  riders  pass 
down  the  street  before  my  window.  One  rides  a  horse, 
the  other  a  mare.  The  animals  were  perhaps  foaled  in 
the  same  stable,  of  the  same  progenitors.  They  have 
been  reared  alike,  fed  alike,  trained  alike,  ridden  alike  ; 
they  need  the  same  exercise,  the  same  grooming  ;  nine 
tenths  of  their  existence  are  the  same,  and  only  the 


10  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

other  tenth  is  different.  Their  whole  organization  is 
marked  by  the  distinction  of  sex ;  but,  thougli  the 
marking  is  ineffaceable,  the  distinction  is  not  the  first 
or  most  important  fact. 

If  this  be  true  of  the  lower  animals,  it  is  far  more 
true  of  the  higher.  The  mental  and  moral  laws  of  the 
universe  touch  us  first  and  chiefly  as  human  beings. 
We  eat  our  breakfasts  as  human  beings,  not  as  men 
and  women  ;  and  it  is  the  same  with  nine  tenths  of  our 
interests  and  duties  in  life.  In  legislating  or  philoso- 
phizing for  woman,  we  must  neither  forget  that  she  has 
an  oro:anization  distinct  from  that  of  man,  nor  must  we 
exaggerate  the  fact.  Not  '^  first  the  womanly  and  then 
the  human,"  but  first  the  human  and  then  the  womanly, 
is  to  be  the  order  of  her  training. 


BAUWINy  HUXLEY,   AND  BUCKLE.  11 


II. 

DARWIN,  HUXLEY,  AND  BUCKLE. 

When  any  woman,  old  or  young,  asks  the  question, 
W'bich  among  all  modern  books  ought  I  to  read  first? 
the  answer  is  plain.  She  should  read  Buckle's  lec- 
ture before  the  Royal  Institution  upon  ' '  The  Influence 
of  Woman  on  the  Progress  of  Knowledge."  It  is 
one  of  two  papers  contained  in  a  thin  volume  called 
"'Essays  by  Henry  Thomas  Buckle."  As  a  means 
whereby  a  woman  may  become  convinced  that  her  sex 
has  a  place  in  the  intellectual  universe,  this  little  essay 
is  almost  indispensable.     Nothing  else  takes  its  place. 

Darwin  and  Huxley  seem  to  make  woman  simply  a 
lesser  man,  weaker  in  body  and  mind, — an  affection- 
ate and  docile  animal,  of  inferior  grade.  That  there 
is  any  aim  in  the  distinction  of  the  sexes,  beyond  the 
perpetuation  of  the  race,  is  nowhere  recognized  by 
them,  so  far  as  I  know.  That  there  is  any  thing  in 
the  intellectual  sphere  to  correspond  to  the  physical 
difference  ;  that  here  also  the  sexes  are  equal  yet  di- 
verse, and  the  natural  completion  and  complement  of 
the  other,  —  this  neither  Huxley  nor  Darwin  explicitly 
recognizes.  And  with  the  utmost  admiration  for  their 
gre-at  teachings  in  other  ways,  I  must  think  that  here 
they  are  open  to  the  suspicion  of  narrowness. 

Huxley  wrote  in  ''The  Reader,"  in  1864,  a  short 


12  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOAfEN. 

paper  called  "Emancipation  —  Black  and  White,"  in 
which,  while  taking  generous  ground  in  behalf  of  the 
legal  and  political  position  of  woman,  he  yet  does  it 
pityingly,  de  haut  en  bas,  as  for  a  creature  hopelessly 
inferior,  and  so  heavih^  weighted  already  by  her  sex, 
that  she  should  be  spared  all  further  trials.  Speaking 
through  an  imaginary  critic,  who  seems  to  represent 
himself,  he  denies  "even  the  natural  equality  of  the 
sexes,"  and  declares  "that  in  every  excellent  charac- 
ter, whether  mental  or  physical,  the  average  woman 
is  inferior  to  the  average  man,  in  the  sense  of  having 
that  characterless  in  quantity  and  lower  in  quality." 
Finally  he  goes  so  far  as  "to  defend  the  startling  par- 
adox that  even  in  phj^sical  beaut}^  man  is  the  supe- 
rior." He  admits  that  for  a  brief  period  of  early 
youth  the  case  may  be  doubtful,  but  claims  that  after 
thirt}^  the  superior  beauty  of  man  is  unquestionable. 
Thus  reasons  Huxley  ;  the  whole  essay  being  included 
in  his  volume  of  "Lay  Sermons,  Addresses,  and 
Reviews."  ^ 

Darwin's  best  statements  on  the  subject  may  be 
found  in  his  "Descent  of  Man."^  He  is,  as  usual, 
more  moderate  and  guarded  than  Huxley.  He  says, 
for  instance:  "It  is  generally  admitted  that  with 
women  the  powers  of  intuition,  of  rapid  perception, 
and  perhaps  of  imitation,  are  more  strongly  marked 
than  in  man  ;  but  some,  at  least,  of  these  faculties  are 
characteristic  of  the  lower  races,  and  therefore  of  a 
past  and  lower  state  of  civilization."  Then  he  passes 
to  the  usual  assertion  that  man  has  thus  far  attained  to 
a  higher  eminence  than  woman.      "If  two  lists  were 

1  Pp.  22,  23,  Am.  cd.  2  ij.,  311,  Am.  Ed. 


DAB  WIN,   HUXLEY,   AND  BUCKLE.  13 

made  of  the  most  eminent  men  and  women  in  poetry, 
painting,  sculpture,  music,  —  comprising  composition 
and  performance,  —  history,  science,  and  philosophy, 
with  half  a  dozen  names  under  each  subject,  the  two 
lists  would  not  bear  comparison."  But  the  obvious 
answer,  that  nearly  every  name  on  his  list,  upon  the 
masculine  side,  would  probably  be  taken  from  periods 
when  woman  was  excluded  from  any  fair  competition, 
—  this  he  does  not  seem  to  recognize  at  all.  Darwin, 
of  all  men,  must  admit  that  superior  merit  generally 
arrives  later,  not  earlier,  on  the  scene  ;  and  the  ques- 
tion for  him  to  answer  is,  not  whether  woman  equalled 
man  in  the  first  stages  of  the  intellectual  "  struggle 
for  life,"  but  whether  she  is  not  gaining  on  him  now. 

If,  in  spite  of  man's  enormous  advantage  in  the 
start,  woman  has  already  overtaken  his  very  best  per- 
formances in  several  of  the  highest  intellectual  depart- 
ments, —  as,  for  instance,  prose  fiction  and  dramatic 
representation, — then  it  is  mere  dogmatism  in  Mr. 
Darwin  to  deny  that  she  may  yet  do  the  same  in  other 
departments.  AVe  in  this  generation  have  actually  seen 
this  success  achieved  by  Rachel  and  Ristori  in  the  one 
art,  by  "George  Sand"  and  ''George  Eliot"  in  the 
other.  AVoman  is,  then,  visibly  gaining  on  man,  in  the 
sphere  of  intellect ;  and,  if  so,  Mr.  Darwin,  at  least, 
must  accept  the  inevitable  inference. 

But  this  is  arguing  the  question  on  the  superficial 
facts  merely.  Buckle  goes  deeper,  and  looks  to  prm- 
ciples.  That  superior  quickness  of  women,  which 
Darwin  dismisses  so  lightly  as  something  belonging  to 
savage  epochs,  is  to  Buckle  the  sign  of  a  quality  which 
he  holds  essential,  not  only  to  literature  and  art,  but 


14  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN 

to  science  itself.  Go  among  ignorant  women,  he  says, 
and  you  will  find  them  more  quick  and  intelligent  than 
equally  ignorant  men.  A  woman  will  usually  tell  yon 
the  way  in  the  street  more  readily  than  a  man  can ;  a 
woman  can  always  understand  a  foreigner  more  easily ; 
and  Dr.  Currie  says  in  his  letters,  that  when  a  laborer 
and  his  wife  came  to  consult  him,  he  always  got  all  the 
information  from  the  wife.  Buckle  illustrates  this  at 
some  length,  and  points  out  that  a  woman's  mind  is 
by  its  nature  deductive  and  quick  ;  a  man's  mind,  in- 
ductive and  slow ;  that  each  has  its  value,  and  that 
science  profoundly  needs  both. 

'^  I  will  endeavor,"  he  says,  "  to  establish  two  prop- 
ositions. First,  that  women  naturally  prefer  the  de- 
ductive method  to  the  inductive.  Secondh^  that 
women,  by  encouraging  in  men  deductive  habits  of 
thought,  have  rendered  an  immense  though  uncon- 
scious service  to  the  progress  of  science,  by  prevent- 
ing scientific  investigators  from  being  as  exclusively 
inductive  as  they  would  otherwise  be." 

Then  he  shows  that  the  most  important  scientific 
discoveries  of  modern  times  —  as  of  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation by  Newton,  the  law  of  the  forms  of  crystals 
by  Haiiy,  and  the  metamorphosis  of  plants  by  Goethe 
—  were  all  essentially  the  results  of  that  a  priori  or 
deductive  method,  "  which,  during  the  last  two  centu- 
ries, Englishmen  have  unwisely  despised."  They  were 
all  the  work,  m  a  manner,  of  the  imagination,  —  of 
the  intuitive  or  womanly  quality  of  mind.  And  noth- 
ing can  be  finer  or  truer  than  the  words  in  which 
Buckle  predicts  the  benefits  that  are  to  come  from  the 
intellectual    union    of   the  sexes  for  the  work    of    the 


DAEWiy,   HUXLEY,   AXD   BUCKLE.  15 

future.  "In  that  field  which  we  and  our  posterity 
have  yet  to  traverse,  I  firmly  believe  that  the  imagina- 
tion will  effect  quite  as  much  as  the  understanding. 
Our  poetry  will  have  to  re-enforce  our  logic,  and  we 
must  feel  quite  as  much  as  we  must  argue.  Let  us, 
then,  hope  that  the  imaginative  and  emotional  minds 
of  one  sex  will  continue  to  accelerate  the  great  prog- 
ress by  acting  upon  and  improving  the  colder  and 
harder  minds  of  the  other  sex.  By  this  coalition,  by 
this  union  of  different  faculties,  different  tastes,  and 
different  methods,  we  shall  go  on  our  way  with  the 
oreater  ease." 


16  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 


III. 
WHICH  IS  THE  STRONGER? 

What  is  strength, — the  brute  hardness  of  h'on,  or 
the  more  delicate  strength  of  steel?  Which  is  the 
stronger,  —  the  physical  frame  that  can  strike  the 
harder  blow,  or  that  which  can  endure  the  greater 
strain  and  j^et  last  longer  ?  ' '  Man  can  lift  a  heavier 
weight,"  says  a  writer  on  ph3'siology,  "but  woman 
can  watch  more  enduringly  at  the  ])edside  of  her  sick 
child."  The  strain  upon  the  system  of  all  women  who 
have  borne  and  reared  children  is  as  great  in  its  way 
as  that  upon  the  system  of  the  carpenter  or  the  wood- 
chopper  ;  and  the  power  to  endure  it  is  as  properly  to 
be  called  strength. 

Again,  which  is  the  stronger  in  the  domain  of  will, 
—  the  man  who  carries  his  points  by  energy  and 
command,  or  the  woman  who  carries  hers  by  patience 
and  persuasion  ?  the  man  in  the  household  who  leads 
and  decides,  or  the  woman  who  foresees,  guards,  man- 
ages? the  mother  of  the  family,  who  puts  the  commas 
and  semicolons  in  her  children's  lives,  as  Jean  Paul 
Richter  says,  oi;  the  father  who  puts  in  the  colons  and 
periods  ?  It  may  be  hard  to  say  which  type  of  strength 
is  the  more  to  be  admired,  but  it  is  clear  that  they  are 
both  genuine  types. 

One  grows  tired  of  hearing  young  men  who  can  do 


WHICH  IS   THE  STRONGER  f  17 

nothing  but  row,  or  swing  dumb-bells,  and  are  thrown 
wholly  "off  their  training"  by  the- loss  of  a  night's 
sleep,  speak  contemptuously  of  the  physical  weakness 
of  a  woman  who  can  watch  with  a  sick  person  half  a 
dozen  nights  together.  It  is  absurd  to  hear  a  man 
who  is  prostrated  by  a  single  reverse  in  business  speak 
of  being  "encumbered"  with  a  wife  who  can  perhaps 
alter  the  habits  of  a  lifetime  more  easily  than  he  can 
abandon  his  half-dollar  cigars.  It  is  amusing  to  read 
the  criticisms  of  languid  and  graceful  masculine  essay- 
ists on  the  want  of  vigorous  intellect  in  the  sex  that 
wrote  "Aurora  Leigh"  and  "  Middlemarch "  and 
"Consuelo." 

It  may  be  that  a  man's  strength  is  not  a  woman's, 
or  a  woman's  strength  that  of  a  man.  I  am  arguing 
for  equivalence,  not  identity.  The  greater  part  played 
in  the  plieuomena  of  woman's  strength  by  sensibility 
and  impulse  and  variations  and  tears  —  this  does  not 
affect  the  matter.  What  I  have  never  been  able  to 
see  is,  that  woman  as  such  is,  in  the  long-run  and 
tried  by  all  the  tests,  a  weaker  being  than  man.  And 
it  would  seem  that  any  man,  in  proportion  as  he  lives 
longer  and  sees  more  of  life,  must  have  the  conceit 
taken  out  of  him  by  actual  contact  with  some  woman 
—  be  she  mother,  sister,  wife,  daughter,  or  friend  — 
who  is  not  only  as  strong  as  himself  in  all  substantial 
regards,  but  it  may  be,  on  the  whole,  a  little  stronger. 


18  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


IV. 

THE   SPirJT   OF   SMALL   TYRANNY. 

Whp:n  Mr.  John  Smauker  and  the  Bath  footmen 
invited  Sam  Weller  to  their  "swany,"  consisting  of  a 
boiled  leg  of  mutton,  each  guest  liad  some  expression 
of  contempt  and  wrath  for  the  humljle  little  green- 
grocer who  served  them,  —  "in  the  true  spirit,"  Dick- 
ens saj^s,  "  of  the  very  smallest  tyranny."  The  very 
fact  that  they  were  subject  to  being  ordered  about  in 
their  own  persons  gave  them  a  peculiar  delight  in  issu- 
ing tyrannical  orders  to  others :  just  as  sophomores  in 
college  torment  freshmen  because  other  sophomores 
once  teased  the  present  tormentors  themselves ;  and 
Irishmen  denounce  the  Chinese  for  underbidding  them 
in  the  labor-market,  precisely  as  they  were  themselves 
denounced  by  native-born  Americans  thirty  years  ago. 
So  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to  me  that  the  men  whose 
own  positions  and  claims  are  really  least  commanding 
are  those  who  hold  most  resolutely  that  women  should 
be  kept  in  their  proper  place  of  subordination. 

A  friend  of  mine  maintains  the  theory  that  men  large 
and  strong  in  person  are  constitutionally'  inclined  to  do 
justice  to  women,  as  fearing  no  competition  from  them 
in  the  way  of  bodily  strength  ;  but  that  small  and  weak 
men  are  apt  to  be  vehemently  opposed  to  any  thing 
like  equality  in  the    sexes.     He  quotes  in  defence  of 


THE   SPIIUT   OF  SMALL    TYEANNY.  19 

his  theory  the  big  soldier  in  London  who  justified  him- 
self for  allowing  his  little  wife  to  chastise  him,  on  the 
ground  that  it  pleased  her  and  did  not  hurt  him  ;  and 
on  the  other  hand  cites  the  extreme  domestic  tyranny 
of  the  dwarf  Quilp.  He  declares  that  in  any  difficult 
excursion  among  woods  and  mountains,  the  guides  and 
the  able-bodied  men  are  often  willing  to  have  women 
join  the  party,  while  it  is  sure  to  be  opposed  by  those 
who  doubt  their  own  strength  or  are  reluctant  to  dis- 
play their  weakness.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  so  far 
as  my  friend  goes  ;  but  many  will  remember  some  fact 
of  this  kind,  making  such  theories  appear  not  quite  so 
absurd  as  at  first. 

Thus  it  seems  from  the  ' '  Life  and  Letters  ' '  of 
Sydney  Dobell,  the  English  poet,  that  he  was  opposed 
both  to  woman  suffrage  and  woman  authorship,  believ- 
ing the  movement  for  the  former  to  be  a  "  blundering 
on  to  the  perdition  of  womanhood."  It  appears  that 
against  all  authorship  b}^  women  his  convictions  yearly 
grew  stronger,  he  regarding  it  as  "an  error  and  an 
anomaly."  It  seems  quite  in  accordance  with  my 
friend's  theory  to  hear,  after  this,  that  Sydney  Dobell 
was  slight  in  person  and  a  life-long  invalid ;  nor  is  it 
surprising,  on  the  same  theory,  that  his  poetry  took  no 
deep  root,  and  that  it  will  not  be  likely  to  survive  long, 
except  perhaps  in  his  weird  ballad  of  •' Ravelston." 
But  he  represents  a  large  class  of  masculine  intellects, 
of  secondary  and  mediocre  quality,  whose  opinions  on 
this  subject  are  not  so  much  opinions  as  instinctive 
prejudices  against  a  competitor  who  may  turn  out  their 
superior.  Whether  they  know  it,  or  not,  their  aversion 
to  the  authorship  of  women  is  very  much  like  the  con- 


20  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

viction  of  a  weak  pedestrian,  that  women  are  not  nat- 
urally fitted  to  take  long  walks  ;  or  the  opinion  of  a  man 
whose  own  accounts  are  in  a  muddle,  that  his  wife  is 
constitutionally  unfitted  to  understand  business. 

It  is  a  pity  to  praise  either  sex  at  the  expense  of  the 
other.  The  social  inequality  of  the  sexes  was  not  pro- 
duced so  much  by  the  voluntary  tj-ranny  of  man,  as  by 
his  great  practical  advantage  at  the  outset ;  human  his- 
tory necessarily  beginning  with  a  period  when  physical 
strength  was  sole  ruler.  It  is  unnecessary,  too,  to 
consider  in  how  many  cases  women  may  have  justi- 
fied this  distrust ;  and  may  have  made  themselves  as 
obnoxious  as  Horace  Walpole's  maids  of  honor,  whose 
coaclnnan  left  his  savings  to  his  son  on  condition  that 
he  should  never  marry  a  maid  of  honor.  But  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  on  the  whole  the  feeling  of  contempt  for 
women,  and  the  love  to  exercise  arbitrary  power  over 
them,  is  the  survival  of  a  crude  impulse  which  the  world 
is  outgrowing,  and  which  is  in  general  least  obvious  in 
the  manliest  men.  That  clear  and  able  English  writer, 
Walter  Bagehot,  well  describes  "the  contempt  for 
physical  weakness  and  for  women  which  marks  early 
society.  The  non-combatant  population  is  sure  to  fare 
ill  during  the  ages  of  combat.  But  these  defects,  too, 
are  cured  or  lessened ;  women  have  now  marvellous 
means  of  winning  their  way  in  the  world  ;  and  mind 
without  muscle  has  far  greater  force  than  muscle  with- 
out mind."  ^ 

1  Physics  and  Politics,  p,  79. 


TUE  NOBLE   SEX:'  21 


V. 

"THE   XOBLE   SEX." 

A  HIGHLY  educated  American  woman  of  my  acquaint- 
ance once  emplo3'ed  a  French  tutor  in  Paris,  to  assist 
her  in  teaching  Latin  to  her  little  grandson.  The 
Frenchman  brought  with  him  a  Latin  grammar,  written 
in  his  own  language,  with  which  my  friend  was  quite 
pleased,  until  she  came  to  a  passage  relating  to  the 
masculine  gender  in  nouns,  and  claiming  grammatical 
precedence  for  it  on  the  ground  that  the  male  sex  is 
the  noble  sex,  —  " /e  sexe  noble.'"  "Upon  that,"  she. 
said,  "  I  burst  forth  in  indignation,  and  the  poor  teacher 
soon  retired.  But  I  do  not  believe,"  she  added,  "that 
the  Frenchman  has  the  slightest  conception,  up  to  this 
moment,  of  what  I  could  find  in  that  phrase  to  dis- 
please me." 

I  do  not  suppose  he  could.  From  the  time  when 
the  Salic  Law  set  French  women  aside  from  the  royal 
succession,  on  the  ground  that  the  kingdom  of  France 
was  "too  noble  to  be  ruled  by  a  woman,"  the  claim 
of  nobility  has  been  all  on  one  side.  The  State  has 
strengthened  the  Church  in  this  theory,  the  Church  has 
strenorthened  the  State  :  and  the  result  of  all  is.  that 
French  grammarians  follow  both  these  high  authorities. 
When  even  the  good  Pere  Hyacinthe  teaches,  through 
the   New  York  Independent,   that  the  husband   is  to 


22  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

direct  the  conscience  of  his  wife,  precisely  as  the  father 
directs  that  of  his  child,  what  higher  philosophy  can 
you  expect  of  any  Frenchman  than  to  maintain  the 
claims  of  "  Ze  sexe  noble  ' '  ? 

AVe  see  the  consequence,  even  among  the  most 
heterodox  Frenchmen.  Rejecting  all  other  precedents 
and  authorities,  the  poor  Communists  still  held  to  this. 
Consider,  for  instance,  this  translation  of  a  marriage- 
contract  under  the  Commune,  which  lately  came  to 
light  in  a  trial  reported  in  the  ' '  Gazette  des  Tribu- 
naux  :  "  — 

FRENCH  REPUBLIC. 

The  citizen  Anet,  son  of  Jean  Louis  Anet,  and  the  citoy- 
enne  Maria  Saint ;  she  engaged  to  follow  the  said  citizen  every- 
where and  to  love  him  always.  — Anet.     Maria  Saint. 

Witnessed  by  the  under-mentioned  citizen  and  citoyenne.  — 
Fourier.     Laroche. 
.     Paris,  April  22, 1871. 

What  a  comfortable  arrangement  is  this !  Poor  ci- 
toyenne  Maria  Saint,  even  when  all  human  laws  have 
suspended  their  action,  still  holds  by  her  grammar,  still 
must  annex  herself  to  le  sexe  noble.  She  still  must 
follow  citizen  Anet  as  the  feminine  pronoun  follows  the 
masculine,  or  as  a  verb  agrees  with  its  nominative  case 
in  number  and  in  person.  But  with  what  a  lordly  free- 
dom from  all  obligation  does  citizen  Anet,  representa- 
tive of  this  nobility  of  sex,  accept  the  allegiance  !  The 
citizeness  may  '•  follow  him,"  certainly,  —  so  long  as  she 
is  not  in  the  way,  —  and  she  must  '^  love  him  always  ;  '* 
but  he  is  not  bound.  Why  should  he  be?  It  would 
be  quite  ungrammatical. 

Yet,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  there  is  a  brutal  hon- 


"  THE  NOBLE  SEX:'  23 

esty  in  this  frank  subordination  of  tlie  woman  according 
to  the  grammar.  It  has  tlie  same  merit  with  the  old 
Russian  marriage-consecration  :  "  Here,  wolf,  take  thy 
lamb,"  which  at  least  put  the  thing  clearly,  and  made 
no  nonsense  about  it.  I  do  not  know  that  an^'where  in 
France  the  wedding  ritual  is  now  so  severely  simple  as 
that,  but  I  know  that  in  some  rural  villages  of  that 
country  the  bride  is  still  married  in  a  mourning-gown. 
I  should  think  she  would  be. 


24  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    ]VOMEN. 


VI. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL   CROAKIXG. 

A  VERY  old  man  once  came  to  King  Agis  of  Sparta, 
to  lament  over  the  degeneracy  of  the  times.  The  king 
replied,  "  What  you  say  must  be  true  ;  for  I  remember 
that  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  heard  my  father  say  that 
when  he  was  a  boy,  he  heard  my  grandfather  say  the 
same  thing." 

It  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  most  of  the  croakers,  that 
doubtless  the  same  things  have  been  said  in  every  gene- 
ration since  the  beginning  of  recorded  time.  Till  within 
twenty  years,  for  instance,  it  has  been  the  accepted 
theory,  that  civilized  society  lost  in  vigor  what  it 
gained  in  refinement.  This  is  now  generally  admitted 
to  be  a  delusion  growing  out  of  the  fact  that  civilization 
keeps  alive  many  who  would  have  died  under  barbar- 
ism. These  feebler  persons  enter  into  the  average,  and 
keep  down  the  apparent  health  of  the  community  ;  but 
it  is  the  triumph  of  civilization  that  they  exist  at  all. 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  that  when  we  come  to  compare 
the  nineteenth  century  with  the  seventeenth,  as  regards 
the  health  of  women  and  the  size  of  families,  we  shall 
find  much  the  same  result. 

We  look  around  us,  and  see  many  invalid  or  childless 
women.  We  say  the  Pilgrim  mothers  were  not  like 
these.  We  cheat  ourselves  by  this  perpetual  worship 
of  the  pioneer  grandmother.  How  the  j^oung  bachelors, 
who  write  dashing  articles  in  the  newspapers,  denounce 


PHYSIOLOGICAL    CBOAKING.  25 

their  "  nervous  "  sisters,  for  instance,  and  belabor  them 
with  cruel  memories  of  their  ancestors  !  "The  great- 
grandmother  of  this  helpless  creature,  very  likely,  was 
a  pioneer  in  the  woods  ;  reared  a  famil}^  of  twelve  or 
thirteen  children  ;  spun,  scrubbed,  wove,  and  cooked ; 
lived  to  eighty-five,  with  iron  muscles,  a  broad  chest 
and  keen,  clear  eyes."  But  no  one  can  study  the  gene- 
alogies of  our  older  New  England  families  without 
noticing  how  many  of  the  aunts  and  sisters  and  daugh- 
ters of  this  imaginary  Amazon  died  3^oung.  I  think 
there  may  be  the  same  difference  between  the  households 
of  to-day  and  the  Puritan  households  that  there  is 
confessedly  between  the  American  families  and  the 
Irish :  fewer  children  are  born,  but  more  survive. 

And  is  it  so  sure  that  the  families  are  diminishing, 
even  as  respects  the  number  of  children  born  ?  This  is 
a  simple  question  of  arithmetic,  for  which  the  materials 
are  being  rapidly  accumulated  by  the  students  of  family 
history.  Let  each  person  take  the  lines  of  descent 
which  are  nearest  to  himself,  to  begin  with,  and  com- 
pare the  number  of  children  born  in  successive  genera- 
tions. I  have,  for  instance,  two  such  tables  at  hand, 
representing  two  of  the  oldest  New  Engliind  families, 
which  meet  in  the  same  family  of  children  in  this  gene- 
ration. 

FIRST   TABLE. 

CHILDREN 

Fh'St  generation  (emigrated  1629)       ...  9 

Second  generation 7 

Tliird  generation          .         .         .         .         .         .  *7 

Fourtli  generation 8 

Fif  til  generation Y 

Sixtli  generation 10 

Average 8 


26  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

SECOND   TABLE. 

CHILDREN. 

First  generation  (emigrated  1G36)       .        .        .10 

Second  generation 7 

Third  generation 14 

Fourth  generation 7 

Fifth  generation 6 

Sixtli  generation 4 

Seventli  generation 10 

Average 8.29 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  last  generation  exhibits  the 
largest  family  in  the  first  line,  and  almost  the  largest 
—  much  be3^ond  the  average  —  in  the  other. 

Now,  when  we  consider  the  great  change  in  all  the 
habits  of  living,  since  the  Puritan  da3^s,  and  all  the 
vicissitudes  to  which  a  single  line  is  exposed,  —  a  whole 
household  being  sometimes  destroyed  by  a  single  hered- 
itary disease,  — this  is  certainly  a  fair  exhibit.  These 
two  genealogies  were  taken  at  random,  because  they 
happened  to  be  nearest  at  hand.  But  I  suspect  any 
extended  examination  of  genealogies,  either  of  the  Puri- 
tan families  of  New  England,  or  the  Dutch  families  of 
New  York,  would  show  much  the  same  result.  Some 
of  the  descendants  of  the  old  Stuj'vesant  race,  for 
instance,  exhibit  in  this  generation  a  phj'sical  vigor 
which  it  is  impossible  that  the  doughty  governor  him- 
self could  have  surpassed. 

There  are  undoubtedly  many  moral  and  physiological 
sins  committed,'  tending  to  shorten  and  weaken  life  ; 
but  the  progress  of  knowledge  more  than  counterbal- 
ances them.  No  man  of  middle  age  can  look  at  a  class 
of  students  from  our  older  colleges  without  seeing  tliem 
to  be  physically  superior  to  the  same  number  of  college 


PHYSIOLOGICAL   CBOAKING.  27 

boys  taken  twenty-five  years  ago.  The  organization 
of  girls  being  far  more  delicate  and  complicated,  the 
same  reform  reaches  them  more  promptly,  but  it  reaches 
them  at  last.  The  little  girls  of  the  present  day  eat 
better  food,  wear  more  healthful  clothing,  and  breathe 
more  fresh  air,  than  their  mothers  did.  The  introduc- 
tion of  india-rubber  boots  and  waterproof  cloaks  alone 
has  given  a  fresh  lease  of  life  to  multitudes  of  women, 
who  otherwise  would  have  been  kept  housed  whenever 
there  was  so  much  as  a  sprinkling  of  rain. 

It  is  desirable,  certainly,  to  venerate  our  grandmoth- 
ers ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think,  on  the  whole,  that 
their  great-granddaughters  will  be  the  best. 


28  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


VII. 

THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  OUR  GRANDMOTHERS. 

Every  young  woman  of  the  present  generation,  so 
soon  as  she  ventures  to  have  a  headache  or  a  set  of 
nerves,  is  immediately  confronted  by  indignant  critics 
with  her  grandmother.  If  the  orandmother  is  living;, 
the  fact  of  her  existence  is  appealed  to :  if  there  is 
only  a  departed  grandmother  to  remember,  the  maiden 
is  confronted  with  a  ghost.  That  ghost  is  endowed 
with  as  many  excellences  as  those  with  which  Miss 
Betsey  Trotwood  endowed  the  niece  that  never  had 
been  born  ;  and,  as  David  Copperfield  was  reproached 
with  the  virtues  of  his  unborn  sister  who  "  would  never 
have  run  away,"  so  that  granddaughter  with  the  liead- 
ache  is  reproached  with  the  ghostly  perfections  of  her 
grandmother,  who  never  had  a  headache  —  or,  if  she 
had,  it  is  luckily  forgotten.  It  is  necessary  to  ask, 
sometimes,  what  was  really  the  truth  about  our  grand- 
mothers? Were  they  such  models  of  bodily  perfection 
as  is  usually  claimed? 

If  we  look  at  the  early  colonial  days,  we  are  at  once 
met  b}^  the  fact,,  that  although  families  were  then  often 
larger  than  is  now  common,  yet  this  phenomenon  was 
by  no  means  universal,  and  was  balanced  by  a  good 
many  childless  homes.  Of  this  any  one  can  satisfy 
himself  by  looking  over  any  family  history ;    and    he 


THE   TRUTH  ABOUT   OUR    GRANDMOTHERS.      29 

can  also  satisfy  himself  of  the  fact.  —  first  pointed 
out,  I  believe,  by  Mrs.  Dall, — that  third  and  fourth 
marriages  were  then  obviously  and  unquestiouabl}^ 
more  common  than  now.  The  inference  would  seem 
to  l)e,  that  there  is  a  little  illusion  about  the  health  of 
those  days,  as  there  is  about  the  health  of  savage  races. 
In  both  cases,  it  is  not  so  much  that  the  average  health 
is  greater  under  less  highly  civilized  conditions,  but 
tliat  these  conditions  kill  oif  the  weak,  and  leave  only 
the  strong.  ^Modern  civilized  societ}^,  on  the  other 
hand,  preserves  the  health  of  many  men  and  women  — 
and  permits  them  to  marry,  and  become  parents  —  who 
under  the,  severities  of  savage  life  or  of  pioneer  life 
would  have  died,  and  given  way  to  others. 

On  this  I  will  not  dwell ;  because  these  good  ladies 
were  not  strictl}-  our  grandmothers,  being  farther  re- 
moved. But  of  those  who  were  our  grandmothers,  — 
the  women  of  the  Revolutionary  and  post-Revolutionary 
epochs,  —  we  happen  to  have  very  definite  phj'siological 
observations  recorded  ;  not  ve^ytiattering,  it  is  true,  but 
frank  aud  searching.  AVhat  these  good  women  are  in 
the  imagination  of  their  descendants,  we  know.  Mrs. 
Stowe  describes  them  as  "  the  race  of  strong,  hardy, 
cheerful  girls  that  used  to  grow  up  in  country  places, 
and  made  the  bright,  neat  New  England  kitchens  of 
olden  times  ;  "  and  adds,  ''  This  race  of  women,  pride 
of  olden  time,  is  daily  lessening  ;  and  in  their  stead 
come  the  fragile,  easily-fatigued,  languid  girls  of  a 
modern  age,  drilled  in  book-learning,  ignorant  of  com- 
mon things." 

AVhat,  now,  was  the  testimony  of  those  who  saw  our 
grandmothers  in  the  flesh?     As  it  happens,  there  were 


30  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

a  good  many  foreigners,  generally  Frenchmen,  who 
came  to  visit  the  new  RepuV)lic  during  the  presidency 
of  Washington.  Let  us  take,  for  instance,  the  testi- 
mony of  the  two  following. 

The  Abbe  Ivobin  was  a  chaplain  in  Rochambeau's 
army  during  the  Revolution,  and  wrote  thus  in  regard 
to  the  American  ladies  in  his  "  Nouveau  Voyage  dans 
I'Amerique  Septentrionale,"  published  in  1782:  — 

"They  are  tall  and  well-proportioned;  their  features  are 
generally  regular;  their  complexions  are  generally  fair  and 
without  color.  ...  At  twenty  years  of  age  the  women  have 
no  longer  the  freshness  of  youth.  At  thirty-five  or  forty  they 
are  wrinkled  and  decrepit.    The  men  are  almost  as  premature." 

Again  :  The  Chevalier  Louis  F^'lix  de  Beaujour  lived 
in  the  United  States  from  1804  to  1814,  as  consul- 
general  and  charge  cV affaires;  and  wrote  a  book,  imme- 
diately after,  ■?■  hich  was  translated  into  English  under 
the  title,  "A  Sketch  of  the  United  States  at  the  Com- 
mencement of  the  Present  Century."  In  this  he  thus 
describes  American  women  :  — 

"The  women  have  more  of  that  delicate  beauty  which  be- 
ngs  to  their  sex,  and  in  general  have  finer  features  and  more 
xpression  in  their  j^hysiognomy.  Their  stature  is  usually  tall, 
and  nearly  all  are  possessed  of  a  light  and  airy  shape, — the 
breast  high,  a  fine  head,  and  their  color  of  a  dazzling  whiteness. 
Let  us  imagine,  under  this  brilliant  form,  the  most  modest  de- 
meanor, a  chaste  and  virginal  air,  accompanied  by  those  single 
and  unaffected  graces  which  flow  from  artless  nature,  and  we 
may  have  an  idea  of  their  beauty;  but  this  beauty  fades  and 
passes  in  a  moment.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  their  form 
changes,  and  at  thirty  the  whole  of  their  charms  have  dis- 
appeared." 


THE   TBUTII  ABOUT  OUR    GBAXDMOTnERS.      31 

These  statements  bring  out  a  class  of  facts,  which,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  are  singuhirly  ignored  ])y  some  of  our 
ph3^siologists.  They  indicate  that  the  modification  of 
the  American  type  began  early,  and  was,  as  a  rule,  due 
to  causes  antedating  the  fasliions  or  studies  of  the 
present  day.  Here  are  our  grandmothers  and  great- 
grandmothers  as  they  were  actually  seen  by  the  eyes  of 
impartial  or  even  flattering  critics.  These  critics  were 
not  Englishmen,  accustomed  to  a  robust  and  ruddy 
type  of  women,  but  Frenchmen,  used  to  a  type  more 
like  the  American.  They  were  not  mere  hasty  travel- 
lers ;  for  the  one  lived  here  ten  3^ears,  and  the  other 
was  stationed  for  some  time  at  Newport,  R.I.,  in  a 
healthy  locality,  noted  in  those  days  for  the  beauty  of 
its  women.  Yet  we  find  it  their  verdict  upon  these 
grandmothers  of  nearl}^  a  hundred  ^^ars  ago,  that  they 
showed  the  same  delicate  beauty,  the  same  slenderness, 
the  same  pallor,  the  same  fragility,  the  same  early 
decline,  with  which  their  granddaughters  are  now  re- 
proached. 

In  some  respects,  probably,  the  physical  habits  of 
the  grandmothers  were  better :  but  an  examination  of 
their  portraits  will  satisfy  any  one  that  they  laced  more 
tiglitly  than  their  descendants,  and  wore  their  dresses 
lower  in  the  neck  ;  and  as  for  their  diet,  we  have  the 
testimony  of  another  French  traveller,  Volney,  who  was 
in  America  from  1795  to  1798,  that  "if  a  premium 
were  offered  for  a  regimen  most  destructive  to  the 
teeth,  the  stomach,  and  the  health  in  general,  none 
could  be  devised  more  eflicacious  for  these  ends  than 
that  in  use  among  this  people."  And  he  goes  on  to 
give   particulars,    showing   a   far   worse   condition    in 


32  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

respect  to  cooker}^  and  diet  than  now  prevails  in  any 
decent  American  societ3\ 

AVe  have  therefore  strong  evidence  that  the  essential 
change  in  the  American  type  was  effected  in  the  last 
century,  not  in  this.  Dr.  E.  H.  Clarke  says,  "  A  cen- 
tury does  not  afford  a  period  long  enough  for  the  pro- 
duction of  great  changes.  That  length  of  time  could 
not  transform  the  sturdy  German  frdulein  and  robust 
English  damsel  into  the  fragile  American  miss."  And 
yet  it  is  pretty  clear  that  the  first  century  and  a  half  of 
our  colonial  life  had  done  just  this  for  our  grandmothers. 
And,  if  so,  our  physiologists  ought  to  conform  their 
theories  to  the  facts. 


THE  PHYSIQUE  OF  AMERICAN   WOMEN.      33 


VIII. 
THE  PHYSIQUE   OF   AMERICAN  WOIVIEN. 

I  WAS  talking  the  other  day  with  a  New  York  phy- 
sician, long  retired  from  practice,  who  after  an  absence 
of  a  dozen  years  in  Europe  has  returned  within  a  year 
to  this  country.  He  volunteered  the  remark,  that  noth- 
ing had  so  impressed  him  since  his  return  as  the  im- 
proved health  of  Americans.  He  said  that  his  wife 
had  been  equally  struck  with  it ;  and  that  they  had 
noticed  it  especially  among  the  inhabitants  of  cities, 
among  the  more  cultivated  classes,  and  in  particular 
among  women. 

It  so  happened,  that  within  twenty- four  hours  almost 
precisely  the  same  remark  was  made  to  me  by  another 
gentleman  of  unusually  cosmopolitan  experience,  and 
past  middle  age.  He  further  fortified  himself  by  a 
similar  assertion  made  him  by  Charles  Dickens,  in  com- 
paring his  second  visit  to  this  country  with  his  first. 
In  answer  to  an  inquiry  as  to  what  points  of  difference 
had  most  impressed  him,  Dickens  said,  "  Y'our  people, 
especially  the  women,  look  better  fed  than  formerly." 

It  is  possible  that  in  all  these  cases  the  witnesses 
may  have  been  led  to  exaggerate  the  original  evil,  while 
absent  from  the  country,  and  so  may  have  felt  some 
undue  re-action  on  their  arrival.  One  of  my  informants 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  was  confident  that  among 


34  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOIfEN. 

his  circle  of  friends  in  Boston  and  in  Loudon  a  dinner- 
party of  half  a  dozen  Americans  would  outweigh  an 
English  party  of  the  same  number.  Granting  this  to 
be  too  bold  a  statement,  and  granting  the  unscientific 
nature  of  all  these  assertions,  they  still  indicate  a 
probability  of  their  own  truth  until  refuted  by  facts  or 
balanced  by  similar  impressions  on  the  other  side. 
They  are  further  corroborated  by  the  surprise  expressed 
by  Huxley  and  some  other  recent  Englishmen  at  finding 
us  a  race  more  substantial  than  they  had  supposed. 

The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  Nature  is  endeavoring  to 
take  a  new  departure  in  the  American,  and  to  produce 
a  race  more  finely  organized,  more  sensitive,  more 
pliable,  and  of  more  nervous  energy,  than  the  races  of 
Northern  Europe ;  that  this  change  of  type  involves 
some  risk  to  health  in  the  process,  but  promises  greater 
results  whenever  the  new  type  shall  be  established.  I 
am  confident  that  there  has  been  within  tlie  last  twenty 
years  a  great  improvement  in  the  physical  habits  of  the 
more  cultivated  classes,  at  least,  in  this  country,  — better 
food,  better  air,  better  habits  as  to  bathing  and  exer- 
cise. The  great  increase  of  athletic  games  ;  the  greatly 
increased  proportion  of  seaside  and  mountain  life  in 
summer ;  the  thicker  shoes  and  boots  of  women  and 
little  girls,  permitting  them  to  go  out  more  freely  in  all 
weathers  —  these  are  among  the  permanent  gains.  The 
increased  habit  of  dining  late,  and  of  taking  only  a 
lunch  at  noon,  is  of  itself  an  enormous  gain  to  the  pro- 
fessional and  mercantile  classes,  because  it  secures  time 
for  eating  and  for  digestion.  Even  the  furnaces  in 
houses,  which  seemed  at  first  so  destructive  to  the  very 
breath  of  life,  turn  out  to  have  given  a  new  lease  to  it ; 


THE  PHYSIQUE  OF  AMERICAN   WOMEN.      35 

and  open  fires  are  being  rapidly  re-introduced  as  a  pro- 
vision for  enjoyment  and  healtli,  when  tlie  main  body 
of  tlie  house  has  been  tempered  by  the  furnace.  There 
has  been,  furthermore,  a  decided  improvement  in  the 
bread  of  the  community,  and  a  very  general  introduc- 
tion of  other  farinaceous  food.  All  this  has  happened 
within  m}^  own  memory,  and  gives  a  priori  probability 
fo  the  alleged  improvement  in  phj^sical  condition  within 
twenty  years. 

And,  if  these  reasonings  are  still  insufficient  on  the 
one  side,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  facts  of  the 
census  are  almost  equally  inadequate  when  quoted  on 
the  other.  If,  for  instance,  all  the  young  people  of  a 
New  Hampshire  village  take  a  fancy  to  remove  to  Wis- 
consin, it  does  not  show  that  the  race  is  dying  out 
because  their  children  swell  the  birth-rate  of  Wisconsin 
instead  of  New  Hampsliire.  If  in  a  given  city  the 
births  among  the  foreign-born  population  are  twice  as 
many  in  proportion  as  among  the  American,  we  have 
not  the  whole  story  until  we  learn  whether  the  deaths 
are  not  twice  as  man}'  also.  If  so,  the  inference  is,  that 
the  same  recklessness  brought  the  children  into  the 
world,  and  sent  them  out  of  it ;  and  no  physiological  in- 
ference whatever  can  be  drawn.  It  was  clearly  estab- 
lished by  the  medical  commission  of  the  Boston  Board 
of  Health,  a  few  years  ago,  that  "  the  general  mortality 
of  the  foreign  element  is  much  greater  than  that  of  the 
native  eleifient  of  our  population."  "This  is  found 
to  be  the  case,"  they  add,  "throughout  the  United 
States  as  well  as  in  Boston." 

80  far  as  I  can  judge,  all  our  ph^'siological  tend- 
encies  are   favorable   rather  than    otherwise :   and  the 


36  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

transplantation  of  the  English  race  seems  now  likely 
to  end  in  no  deterioration,  but  in  a  type  more  finely 
organized,  and  more  comprehensive  and  cosmopolitan  ; 
and  this  without  loss  of  health,  of  longevit}^,  or  of 
physical  size  and  weight.  And,  if  this  is  to  hold  true, 
it  must  be  true  not  only  of  men,  but  of  women. 


VEBY  Mucu  fatigued:'  37 


IX. 

"VERY  MUCH   FATIGUED." 

The  newspapers  say  that  the  AYyoming  ladies,  after 
their  first  trial  of  jury-duty,  looked  very  much  fatigued. 
Well,  why  not? 

Is  it  not  the  privilege  of  their  sex  to  be  fatigued  ? 
Is  it  not  commonly  said  to  be  one  of  their  most  becom- 
ing traits  ?  ' '  The  streuoth  of  womanhood  lies  in  its 
weakness,"  and  so  on;  and,  if  emancipation  does  not 
destro}"  this  lovely  debilit}-,  it  is  not  so  bad,  after  all. 
If  a  graceful  languor  is  desirable,  then  the  more  of  it 
the  better.  Instead  of  the  women's  coming  out  of  the 
jury-box  like  Amazons,  they  simply  came  out  so  many 
tired  women.  They  were  not  spoiled  into  strength, 
but  "  ver}^  much  fatigued." 

In  London  or  New  York,  now,  this  fatigue  might 
have  come  from  six  hours  of  piano-practice,  from  a 
day's  shopping,  from  a  night's  "German."  Then  the 
fatigue  would  be  held  to  be  charming  and  womanly. 
But  to  aid  in  deciding  on  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  a 
fellow- creature,  perhaps  a  fellow- woman, — is  that  the 
only  pursuit  in  which  fatigue  becomes  disreputable  ? 

Consider  at  any  rate  that  in  Wyoming  Territory  these 
more  genteel  and  feminine  forms  of  fatigue  are  as  yet 
rare.  Pianos  are  doubtless  scarce  ;  in  the  shops  whis- 
key is  the  only  thing  not  scarce  ;   ' '  Germans  ' '  are  un- 


38  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

common,  except  in  the  shape  of  wandering  miners  who 
are  looking  for  other  shafts  than  those  of  Cnpid.  Thns 
cut  off  from  city  frivolities,  may  not  the  AYyoming  ladies 
be  allowed  for  a  while  to  tire  themselves  with  something 
useful?  Let  them  have  their  court  duties  until  good 
society  and  "  feminine  "  amusements  arrive.  Let  them 
at  least  be  serviceable  till  they  can  be  ornamental  —  as 
the  English  member  of  Parliament  declared  that  until 
a  man  knew  which  way  his  interest  went,  he  was  justi- 
fied in  temporarily  voting  according  to  his  conscience. 

"  Very  much  fatigued?  "  How  does  jury-duty  affect 
men  ?  Is  there  any  thing  against  which  they  so  fight 
and  struggle  ?  It  is  recognized  b}^  the  universal  mascu- 
line heart  as  the  greatest  bore  known  under  civilization. 
There  is  nothing  which  a  man  will  not  do  in  preference. 
He  will  go  to  church  twice  on  a  Sunday,  he  will  abjure 
tobacco  for  a  week,  he  will  over-state  his  property  to 
the  assessor,  he  will  speak  respectfully  of  Congress,  he 
will  go  without  a  daily  newspaper,  he  will  do  any 
self-devoted  and  unmasculine  thing  —  if  you  will  only 
contrive  in  some  way  to  leave  him  off  the  jury-list.  If 
these  things  are  done  in  the  dry  tree,  what  shall  be 
done  in  the  green  ?  That  which  experienced  men  hate 
with  this  consummation  of  all  hatred,  sliall  inexperi- 
enced women  endure  without  fatigue?  It  is  wrong  to 
claim  for  them  such  unspeakable  superiority. 

Look  at  a  jury  of  men  when  they  re-appear  in  court 
after  a  long  detention  on  a  difficult  case.  What  a  set 
of  woe-begone  wretches  they  are  !  What  wear}^  eyes, 
what  unkempt  hair,  what  drooping  and  dilapidated 
paper  collars  !  Not  all  the  tin  wash-basins  and  soap, 
not  all  the  crackers  and  cheese,  provided  by  the  gentle- 


' '  VEB  Y  MUCH  FA  TIG  UEB. "  39 

manl}^  sheriff,  enable  them  to  look  any  thing  but  "  very 
much  fatigued."  Shall  women  look  more  forlorn  than 
these  men?  No:  so  long  as  women  are  women,  they 
will  contrive  during  the  most  arduous  jury  duties  to 
"•do  up"  their  hair,  they  will  come  provided  with 
unseen  relay's  of  fresh  cuff's  and  collars,  and  out  of  the 
most  unpromising  court-room  arrangements  they  will 
concoct  their  cup  of  tea.  Who  has  not  noticed  how 
much  better  a  railway  detention  or  a  prolonged  trip 
on  a  steamboat  is  borne,  in  appearance  at  least,  by 
the  women  than  the  men  ?  Fatigued  !  How  did  the 
jury-men  look?  Probably  the  jury-women,  when  they 
bade  his  Honor  the  Judge  good-morning,  looked  incom- 
parably fresher  than  their  companions. 

At  any  rate,  when  we  think  what  things  women 
endured  that  they  might  nurse  our  sick  soldiers,  how 
they  had  to  spend  day  and  night  where  they  might  pos- 
sibly inhale  tobacco,  probably  would  hear  swearing,  and 
certaiul}"  must  brave  dirt ;  when  we  think  that  the}^  did 
these  things,  and  were  only  "very  much  fatigued," 
—  wh}^  should  we  fear  to  risk  them  in  a  court- room? 
Where  there  is  wrong  to  be  righted,  innocence  to  be 
vindicated,  and  guilt  to  be  wisely  dealt  with, — there 
make  room  for  woman,  and  she  will  not  shrink  from 
the  fatigue.  "For  thee,  fair  justice!  welcome  all," 
as  Sir  William  Blackstone  remarked,  when  he  stopped 
being  a  poet  and  began  to  be  a  lawyer. 


40  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


X. 

THE   LIMITATIOXS   OF   SEX. 

Are  there  any  inevitable  limitations  of  sex  ? 

Some  reformers,  apparently,  think  that  there  are  not, 
and  that  the  best  way  to  help  woman  is  to  deny  the 
fact  of  limitations.  But  I  think  the  great  majority  of 
reformers  would  take  a  different  ground,  and  would 
say  that  the  two  sexes  are  mutuall}^  limited  by  nature. 
They  would  doubtless  add  that  this  very  fact  is  an 
argument  for  the  enfranchisement  of  woman  :  for,  if 
woman  is  a  mere  duplicate  of  man,  man  can  represent 
her ;  but  if  she  has  traits  of  her  own,  absolutely  dis- 
tinct from  his,  then  he  cannot  represent  her,  and  she 
must  have  a  voice  and  a  vote  of  her  own. 

To  this  last  body  of  believers  I  belong.  I  think 
that  all  legal  or  conventional  obstacles  should  be 
removed,  which  debar  woman  from  determining  for 
herself,  as  freely  as  man  determines,  what  the  real 
limitations  of  sex  are,  and  what  the  merely  conven- 
tional restriction.  But,  when  all  is  said  and  done, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  plenty  of  limitations  will  remain 
on  both  sides. 

That  man  has  his  limitations,  is  clear.  Ko  matter 
how  finely  organized  a  man  may  be,  how  sympathetic, 
how  tender,  how  loving,  there  is  jei  a  barrier,  never 
to  be  passed,  that  separates  the  most  precious  part  of 


THE  LIMITATIONS   OF  SEX.  41 

the  woman's  kingdom  from  him.  All  the  wondrous 
world  of  motherhood,  with  its  unspeakable  delights, 
its  \\o\j  of  holies,  remains  forever  unknown  by  him  ; 
he  may  gaze,  but  never  enter.  That  halo  of  pure  de- 
votion, which  makes  a  Madonna  out  of  so  many  a  poor 
and  ignorant  woman,  can  never  touch  his  brow.  Many 
a  man  loves  children  more  than  many  a  woman  :  but, 
after  all,  it  is  not  he  who  lias  borne  them  ;  to  that 
peculiar  sacreduess  of  experience  he  can  never  arrive. 
But  never  mind  whether  the  loss  be  a  great  one  or  a 
small  one  :  it  is  distinctly  a  limitation  ;  and  to  every 
loving  mother  it  is  a  limitation  so  important  that  she 
would  be  unable  to  weigh  all  the  privileges  and  powers 
of  manhood  against  this  peculiar  possession  of  her 
child. 

Now,  if  this  be  true,  and  if  man  be  thus  distinctly 
limited  by  the  mere  fact  of  sex,  can  the  woman  com- 
plain that  she  also  should  have  some  natural  limita- 
tions? Grant  that  she  should  have  no  unnecessary 
restrictions ;  and  that  the  course  of  human  progress  is 
constantly  setting  aside,  as  needless,  point  after  point 
that  was  once  held  essential.  Still,  if  she  finds  —  as 
she  undoubtedly  will  find  —  that  natural  barriers  and 
hindrances  remain  at  last,  and  that  she  can  no  more  do 
man's  whole  work  in  the  world  than  he  can  do  hers, 
why  should  she  complain  ?  If  he  can .  accept  his  limi- 
tations, she  must  be  prepared  also  to  accept  hers. 

Some  of  our  physiological  reformers  declare  that  a 
girl  will  be  perfectly  healthy  if  she  can  only  be  sensi- 
bly dressed,  and  can  "  have  just  as  much  out-door 
exercise  as  the  boys,  and  of  the  same  sort,  if  she 
choose  it. ' '     But  I  have  observed  that  matter  a  2;ood 


42  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

deal,  and  have  watched  the  effect  of  boyish  exercise 
on  a  good  many  girls  ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that  so  far 
from  being  safely  turned  loose,  as  boys  can  be,  they 
need,  for  ph3^sical  health,  the  constant  supervision  of 
wise  mothers.  Otherwise  the  very  exposure  that  only 
hardens  the  boy  may  make  the  girl  an  invalid  for  life. 
The  danger  comes  from  a  greater  sensitiveness  of 
structure, — not  weakness,  properly  so  called,  since  it 
gives,  in  certain  wa^'S,  more  power  of  endurance,  —  a 
greater  sensitiveness  which  runs  through  all  a  woman's 
career,  and  is  the  expensive  price  she  pa3^s  for  the 
divine  destiny  of  motherhood.  It  is  another  natural 
limitation. 

No  wise  person  believes  in  any  ' '  reform  against  Na- 
ture," or  that  we  can  get  beyond  the  laws  of  Nature. 
If  I  believed  the  limitations  of  sex  to  be  inconsistent 
with  woman  suffrage  for  instance,  I  should  oppose 
this  ;  but  I  do  not  see  why  a  woman  cannot  form  polit- 
ical opinions  by  her  baby's  cradle,  as  well  as  her  hus- 
band in  his  workshop,  while  her  very  love  for  the  child 
commits  her  to  an  interest  in  good  government.  Our 
duty  is  to  remove  all  the  artificial  restrictions  we  can. 
That  done,  it  will  not  be  hard  for  man  or  woman  to 
acquiesce  in  the  natural  limitations. 


TEMPERAMENT. 


'AvSpbc  Kal  yvvaiKbg  ?]  avTTj  uperi].  —  AxTiSTHEXES  in  Diogenes 
Laertius,  vi.  1,  5. 

*'  Virtue  in  man  and  woman  is  the  same." 


THE  INVISIBLE  LADY.  45 


XI. 

THE  IXVISIBLE  LADY. 

The  Invisible  Lady,  as  advertised  in  all  our  cities  a 
good  many  years  ago,  was  a  mj'sterious  individual  who 
remained  unseen,  and  had  apparently  no  human  organs 
except  a  brain  and  a  tongue.  You  asked  questions  of 
her,  and  she  made  intelligent  answers  ;  but  where  she 
was,  3^ou  could  no  more  discover  than  you  could  find 
the  man  inside  the  Automaton  Chess-Pla^^er.  Was  she 
intended  as  a  satire  on  womankind,  or  as  a  sincere  rep- 
resentation of  what  womankind  should  be  ?  To  many 
men,  doubtless,  she  would  have  seemed  the  ideal  of  her 
sex,  could  only  her  brain  and  tongue  have  disappeared 
like  the  rest  of  her  faculties.  Such  men  would  have 
liked  her  almost  as  well  as  that  other  mysterious  per- 
sonage on  the  London  sign-board,  labelled  "  The  Good 
Woman,"  and  represented  by  a  female  figure  without 
a  head. 

It  is  not  that  any  considerable  portion  of  mankind 
actuall}^  wishes  to  abolish  woman  from  the  universe. 
But  the  opinion  dies  hard  that  she  is  best  off  when 
least  visible.  These  appeals  which  still  meet  us  for 
' '  the  sacred  privacy  of  woman  ' '  are  only  the  Invisi- 
ble Lady  on  a  larger  scale.  In  ancient  Boeotia,  brides 
were  carried  home  in  vehicles  whose  wheels  were  burned 
at  the  door  in  token  that  they  would  never  again  be 


46  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

needed.  In  ancient  Rome,  it  was  a  queen's  epitaph, 
"She  staid  at  home,  and  spun," — Domum  servavit, 
la7ium  fecit.  In  Turkey,  not  even  the  officers  of  jus- 
tice can  enter  the  apartments  of  a  woman  without  her 
lord's  consent.  In  Spain  and  Spanish  America,  the  veil 
replaces  the  four  walls  of  the  house,  and  is  a  portable 
seclusion.  To  be  visible  is  at  best  a  sign  of  peasant 
blood  and  occupations  ;  to  be  high-bred  is  to  be  in- 
visible. 

In  the  Azores  I  found  that  each  peasant  family  en- 
deavored to  secure  for  one  or  more  of  its  daughters  the 
pride  and  glory  of  living  unseen.  The  other  sisters, 
secure  in  innocence,  tended  cattle  on  lonely  mountain- 
sides, or  toiled  bare-legged  up  the  steep  ascents,  their 
heads  crowned  with  orange-baskets.  The  chosen  sister 
was  taught  to  read,  to  embroider,  and  to  dwell  indoors  ; 
if  she  went  out  it  was  only  under  escort,  and  with  her 
face  buried  in  a  hood  of  almost  incredible  size,  aiford- 
ing  only  a  glimpse  of  the  poor  pale  cheeks,  so  unlike 
the  rosy  vigor  of  the  damsels  on  the  mountain-side. 
The  girls,  I  was  told,  did  not  covet  this  privilege  of 
seclusion  ;  but  let  us  be  genteel,  or  die. 

Now  all  that  is  left  of  the  Invisible  Lady  among  our- 
selves is  only  the  remnant  of  this  absurd  tradition.  In 
the  seaside  town  where  I  write,  ladies  usually  go  veiled 
in  the  streets,  and  so  general  is  the  practice  that  little 
girls  often  veil  their  dolls.  They  all  suppose  it  to  be 
done  for  complexion  or  for  ornament ;  just  as  people 
still  hang  straps  on  the  backs  of  their  carriages,  not 
knowing  that  it  is  a  relic  of  the  days  when  footmen 
stood  there  and  held  on.  But  the  veil  represents  a  tra- 
dition of  seclusion,  whether  we  know  it  or  not ;  and 


THE  INVISIBLE  LADY.  47 

the  dread  of  bearing  a  woman  speak  in  public,  or  of 
seeing  a  woman  vote,  represents  precisely  the  same 
tradition.    It  is  entitled  to  no  less  respect,  and  no  more. 

Like  all  traditions,  it  finds  something  in  human  nature 
to  which  to  attach  itself.  Early  girlhood,  like  early 
boyhood,  needs  to  be  guarded  and  sheltered,  that  it 
may  mature  unharmed.  It  is  monstrous  to  make  this 
an  excuse  for  keeping  a  woman,  any  more  than  a  man, 
in  a  condition  of  perpetual  subordination  and  seclusion. 
The  young  lover  wishes  to  lock  up  his  angel  in  a  little 
world  of  her  own,  where  none  may  intrude.  The  harem 
and  the  seraglio  are  simply  the  embodiment  of  this 
desire.  But  the  maturer  man,  and  the  maturer  race, 
have  found  that  the  beloved  being  should  be  something 
more. 

After  this  discovery  is  made,  the  theory  of  the  In- 
visible Lady  disappears.  It  is  less  of  a  shock  to  an 
American  to  hear  a  woman  speak  in  public  than  it  is  to 
an  Oriental  to  see  her  show  her  face  in  public  at  all. 
Once  open  the  door  of  the  harem,  and  she  has  the  free- 
dom of  the  house  :  the  house  includes  the  front  door, 
and  the  street  is  but  a  prolonged  doorstep.  With  the 
freedom  of  the  street  comes  inevitably  a  free  access  to 
the  platform,  the  tribunal,  and  the  pulpit.  You  might 
as  well  try  to  stop  the  air  in  its  escape  from  a  punctured 
balloon,  as  to  try,  when  woman  is  once  out  of  the  harem, 
to  put  her  back  there.  Ceasing  to  be  an  Invisible  Lady, 
she  must  become  a  visible  force  :  there  is  no  middle 
ground.  There  is  no  danger  that  she  will  not  be  an- 
chored to  the  cradle,  when  cradle  there  is  ;  but  it  will 
be  by  an  elastic  cable,  that  will  leave  her  as  free  to 
think  and  vote  as  to  pray.     No  woman  is  less  a  mother 


48  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

because  she  cares  for  all  the  concerns  of  the  world  into 
which  her  chilcl  is  born.  It  was  John  Quincy  Adams 
who  said,  defending  the  political  petitions  of  the  women 
of  Plymouth,  that  "women  are  not  only  justified,  but 
exhibit  the  most  exalted  virtue,  when  they  do  depart 
from  the  domestic  circle,  and  enter  on  the  concerns  of 
their  country,  of  humanity,  and  of  their  God." 


SACBED   OBSCURITY.  49 


XII. 
SACRED  OBSCURITY. 

In  the  preface  to  that  ill-named  but  delightful  book, 
the  "  Remains  of  the  late  Mrs.  Richard  Trench,"  there 
is  a  singular  remark  by  the  editor,  her  son.  He  says 
that '  •  the  adage  is  certainly  true  in  regard  to  the  British 
matron,  Bene  vixit  quce  bene  latuit^"  the  meaning  of  this 
adage  being,  "  She  has  lived  well  who  has  kept  herself 
well  out  of  sight. ' '  Applying  this  to  his  beloved  mother, 
he  further  expresses  a  regret  at  disturbing  her  ' '  sacred 
obscurity."  Then  he  goes  on  to  disturb  it  pretty  effec- 
tually by  printing  a  thick  octavo  volume  of  her  most 
private  letters. 

It  is  a  great  source  of  strength  and  advantage  to 
reformers,  that  there  are  always  men  preserved  to  be 
living  examples  of  this  good  old  Oriental  doctrine  of 
"sacred  obscurity."  Just  as  Mr.  Darwin  needs  for 
the  demonstration  of  his  theory  that  the  lower  orders 
of  creation  should  still  be  present  in  visible  form  for 
purposes  of  comparison,  so  every  reformer  needs  to 
fortify  his  position  by  showing  examples  of  the  origi- 
nal attitude  from  which  society  has  been  gradually 
emerging.  If  there  had  been  no  Oriental  seclusion, 
many  things  in  the  present  position  of  woman  would 
be  inexplicable.  But  when  we  point  to  tbat ;  when  we 
show  that  even  in  the  more  enlightened  Eastern  coun- 


50  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

tries  it  is  still  held  indecorous  to  allude  to  the  feminine 
members  of  a  man's  family ;  when  we  see  among  the 
Christian  nations  of  Southern  Europe  many  lingering 
traits  of  this  same  habit  of  seclusion ;  and  when  we 
find  an  archdeacon  of  the  English  Church  still  clinging 
to  the  theory,  even  while  exhibiting  his  mother's  family 
letters  to  the  whole  world,  —  we  more  easily  understand 
the  course  of  development. 

These  re-assertions  of  the  Oriental  theory  are  simply 
reversions,  as  a  naturalist  would  say,  to  the  original 
type.  They  are  instances  of  "atavism,"  like  the  oc- 
casional appearance  of  six  fingers  on  one  hand  in  a 
family  where  the  great-great-grandfather  happened  to 
possess  that  ornament.  Such  instances  can  always  be 
found,  when  one  takes  the  pains  to  look  for  them. 
Thus  a  critic,  discussing  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  Mr. 
Mahaffy's  book  on  "  Social  Life  in  Greece,"  is  sur- 
prised that  this  writer  should  quote,  in  proof  of  the 
degradation  of  woman  in  Athens,  the  remark  attributed 
to  Pericles,  "That  woman  is  best  who  is  least  spoken 
of  among  men,  whether  for  good  or  for  evil."  "In 
our  opinion,"  adds  the  reviewer,  "that  remark  was 
wise  then,  and  is  wise  now."  The  Oriental  theory  is 
not  then,  it  seems,  extinct ;  and  we  are  spared  the 
pains  of  proving  that  it  ever  existed. 

If  this  theory  be  true,  how  falsely  has  the  admiration 
of  mankind  been  given  !  If  the  most  obscure  woman 
is  best,  the  most  conspicuous  must  undoubtedly  be 
worst.  Tried  by  this  standard,  how  unworthy  mnst 
have  been  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  how  reprehen- 
sible must  be  Dorothea  Dix,  what  a  model  of  all  that 
is  discreditable  is  Rosa  Bonheur,  what  a  crownino-  in- 


SACRED    OBSCURITY.  51 

stance  of  human  depravity  is  Florence  Nightingale ! 
Yet  how  consoling  the  thought,  that,  while  these  dis- 
reputable persons  were  thus  wasting  their  substance  in 
the  riotous  performance  of  what  the  world  weakly  styled 
good  deeds,  there  were  always  women  who  saw  the 
folly  of  such  efforts,  women  who  by  steady  devotion  to 
eating,  drinking,  and  sleeping  continued  to  keep  them- 
selves in  sacred  obscurity,  and  to  prove  themselves  the 
ornaments  of  their  sex,  inasmuch  as  no  human  being 
ever  had  occasion  to  mention  their  names ! 

But  alas  for  human  inconsistency !  As  for  this  in- 
verse-ratio theory,  —  this  theory  of  virtue  so  exalted 
that  it  has  never  been  known  or  felt  or  mentioned 
among  men,  — it  is  to  be  observed  that  those  who  hold 
it  are  the  first  to  desert  it  when  stirred  by  an  immedi- 
ate occasion.  Just  as  a  slaveholder,  in  the  old  times, 
after  demonstrating  to  3'ou  that  freedom  was  a  curse 
to  the  negro,  would  instantly  turn  round,  and  inflict 
this  greatest  of  all  curses  on  some  slave  who  had  saved 
his  life ;  so,  I  fear,  would  one  of  these  philosophers,  if 
he  were  profoundl}^  impressed  with  any  great  action 
done  by  a  woman,  give  the  lie  to  all  his  theories,  and 
celebrate  her  fame.  In  spite  of  all  his  fine  principles, 
if  he  happened  to  be  rescued  from  drowning  by  Grace 
Darling,  he  would  put  her  name  in  the  newspaper ;  if 
he  were  tended  in  hospital  by  Clara  Barton,  he  would 
sound  her  praise  ;  and,  if  his  mother  wrote  as  good 
letters  as  did  Mrs.  Trench,  he  would  probably  print 
them  to  the  extent  of  five  hundred  pages,  as  the  arch- 
deacon did,  and  all  his  gospel  of  silence  would  exhale 
itself  in  a  single  sigh  of  regret  in  the  preface. 


52  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XIII. 
*'OUR  TRIALS." 

A  Providence  (R»I.)  newspaper  remarked  some 
time  since  that  Mrs.  Livermore  had  just  delivered  in 
Newport  her  celebrated  lecture,  "What  shall  we  do 
with  our  Trials?"  It  was,  I  suppose,  one  of  those 
felicitous  misprints,  by  which  compositors  build  better 
than  they  know.  The  real  title  of  the  lecture  was, 
"  What  shall  we  do  with  our  Girls?  "  Perhaps  it  was 
the  unconscious  witticism  of  some  poetic  young  type- 
setter, to  whom  damsels  were  as  yet  onl}^  pleasing 
pains  ;  or  of  some  premature  cynic  of  the  printing- 
office,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  regarding  himself  as  a 
Blighted  Being. 

Yet  to  how  many  is  this  morose  phrase  "humanly 
adaptive,"  as  Mrs.  Browning  abstrusely  says!  Anx- 
ious mothers,  for  instance,  will  accept  it,  the  mothers 
of  the  thousands  of  surplus  maidens  —  or  whatever  the 
statistics  say  —  in  Massachusetts.  Frederica  Bremer 
inserts  in  one  of  her  novels  an  ' '  Extra  Leaf  on  Daugh- 
ter-full Houses  ;  "  an  extra  that  should  have  a  large 
circulation  in  man}^  towns  of  New  England.  The 
most  heroic  and  unflinching  remedy  for  this  class  of 
trials,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  was  that  an- 
nounced by  a  small  relative  of  my  own,  aged  three, 
who  sitting  on  the  floor  thus  soliloquized  to  her  doll : 


"OUR    TRIALS.''  53 

"If  I  had  too  many  daughters,  I'd  take  'em  into  the 
woods  and  lose  'em  —  I'd  take  'em  to  the  sea  and  push 
'em  in  :  I  wouldn't  have  too  many  daughters  !  "  She 
is  now  a  happy  wife  and  mother ;  but  Fate,  warned  in 
time  by  such  exceeding  plainness  of  speech,  has  judi- 
ciously endowed  her  chiefly  with  sons. 

Most  of  the  serious  assertion  that  women  are  trials 
comes  from  masculine  wisdom.  One  hears  a  good  deal 
of  it  in  summer,  at  the  seaside,  from  the  marriageable 
youth  of  some  of  our  chief  cities.  After  a  languid 
liour's  chat  upon  tailors  or  boots  or  the  proper  appoint- 
ments of  a  harness,  —  or  of  the  groom,  so  perfectly 
costumed  that  he  seems  but  a  part  of  the  harness,  — 
how  often  the}"  fall  to  lamenting  the  extravagance, 
the  exactions,  the  general  unmarriageableness,  of  the 
young  women  of  the  present  day !  Some  wit  once 
said  that  the  Pilgrim  Mothers  had  much  more  to  bear 
than  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  since  the  Mothers  had  not 
onl}'  to  endure  the  cold  and  the  hunger,  but  to  endure 
the  Fathers  beside.  In  hearing  these  remarks  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  these  young  ladies  must  be 
extravagant  indeed,  if,  in  addition  to  their  own  ex- 
penses, they  take  to  themselves  so  very  costly  a  luxury 
as  a  fashionable  husband. 

And  I  think  that  wiser  critics  than  these  youths 
are  sometunes  tempted  into  treating  these  lovely  and 
lovable  ' '  trials ' '  in  too  severel}^  hopeless  a  way. 
There  is  folly  enough  on  the  surface,  no  doubt,  and 
something  of  it  below  the  surface :  yet  who  docs 
not  remember  how,  in  time  of  need,  all  these  follies 
proved  themselves,  during  our  civil  war,  but  su})er- 
ficial  thiniis?     The  verv  maidens  over  whom  we    liad 


54  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

shaken  our  anxious  heads  were  suddenly  those  who 
with  pale  cheeks  l)ade  their  lovers  leave  them,  or  who 
changed  their  gorgeous  array  for  the  plain  garments 
of  the  hospital.  So  far  as  I  can  judge,  there  is  not  a 
young  girl  within  the  range  of  my  knowledge  who  can 
confidently  be  insured  against  marrying  a  poor  artist 
or  a  poorer  army  officer  to-morrow,  should  she  once 
fall  thoroughly  in  love.  And,  once  married,  she  will 
very  probably  develop  a  power  of  self-denial,  of  econ- 
omy, and  of  dressing  herself  and  baby  gracefully  out 
of  the  cast-off  clothes  of  her  genteel  relations,  —  in  a 
way  to  put  her  critics  to  shame.  I  think  we  ought  all 
patiently  to  endure  "trials"  that  turn  to  such  bless- 
ings in  the  end. 

For  one,  I  can  truly  say,  with  charming  Mrs.  Trench 
in  her  letters  written  in  1816,  "I  do  believe  the  girls 
of  the  present  day  have  not  lost  the  power  of  blusliing ; 
and,  though  I  have  no  grown-up  daughters,  I  enjoy 
the  friendship  of  some  who  might  be  my  daughters, 
in  whom  the  greatest  delicacy  and  modesty  are  united 
with  perfect  ease  of  manner,  and  habitual  intercourse 
with  the  world."  And  if  this  is  the  case,  —  and  I  think 
we  shall  all  own  it  to  be  so,  —  we  may  as  well  have 
the  typographical  error  corrected,  after  all,  and  here- 
after say  —  for  "  trials  "  read  "  girls." 


VIRTUES  ly  COMMON.  55 


XIV. 

YIRTUES   IX   COMMON. 

A  YOUNG  friend  of  mine,  who  was  educated  at  one  of 
the  very  best  schools  for  girls  in  New  York  City,  told 
me  that  one  day  her  teacher  requested  the  older  girls 
to  write  out  a  list  of  virtues  suitable  to  manly  charac- 
ter, which  they  did.  A  month  or  more  later,  when  this 
occurrence  was  well  forgotten,  the  same  teacher  bade 
them  write  out  a  list  of  womanly  virtues,  she  making 
no  reference  to  the  other  list.  Then  she  made  each 
girl  compare  her  lists  ;  and  they  all  found  with  surprise 
that  there  was  no  substantial  difference  between  them. 
The  only  variation,  in  most  cases,  was,  that  they  had 
put  in  a  rather  vague  special  virtue  of  "  manliness  " 
in  the  one  case,  and  "womanliness"  in  the  other;  a 
sort  of  miscellaneous  department  or  "  odd  drawer,"  ap- 
parently, in  which  to  group  all  traits  not  easily  analyzed. 

The  moral  is,  that,  as  tested  by  the  common-sense 
of  these  young  people,  duty  is  duty,  and  the  difference 
between  ethics  for  men  and  ethics  for  women  lies  sim- 
ply in  practical  applications,  not  in  principles. 

Who  can  deny  that  the  philosopher  Antisthenes  was 
right  when  he  said,  "The  virtues  of  the  man  and  the 
woman  are  the  same  "  ?  Not  the  Christian,  certainly  ; 
for  he  accepts  as  his  highest  standard  the  being  who 
in  all  history  best  united  the   highest  qualities  of  both 


56  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

sexes.  Not  the  metaphysician  ;  for  his  anal^^sis  deals 
with  the  human  mind  as  such,  not  with  the  mind  of 
either  sex.  Not  the  evolutionist ;  for  he  is  accustomed 
to  trace  back  qualities  to  their  source,  and  cannot  deny 
that  there  is  in  each  sex  at  least  a  ' '  survival ' '  of  every 
good  and  every  bad  trait.  We  may  say  that  these 
qualities  are,  or  may  be,  or  ought  to  be,  distributed 
unequally  between  the  sexes  ;  but  we  cannot  reasonably 
deny  that  each  sex  possesses  a  share  of  every  quality, 
and  that  what  is  good  in  one  sex  is  also  good  in  the 
other.  Man  may  be  the  braver,  and  yet  courage  in  a 
woman  may  be  nobler  than  cowardice.  Woman  may 
be  the  purer,  and  yd  purity  may  be  noble  in  a  man. 

So  clear  is  this,  that  some  of  the  very  coarsest  writ- 
ers in  all  literature,  and  those  who  have  been  severest 
upon  women,  have  yet  been  obliged  to  acknowledge  it. 
Take,  for  instance.  Dean  Swift,  who  writes  :  — 

"I  am  ignorant  of  any  one  quahty  that  is  amiable  in  a 
woman,  which  is  not  eqnally  so  in  a  man.  I  do  not  except 
even  modesty  and  gentleness  of  nature;  nor  do  I  know  one 
vice  or  folly  which  is  not  equally  detestable  in  both." 

Mrs.  Jameson,  in  her  delightful  "  Commonplace 
Book,"  illustrates  this  admirably  by  one  or  two  test 
cases.  She  takes,  for  instance,  from  one  of  Hum- 
boldt's letters  a  much-admired  passage  on  manly  char- 
acter :  — 

"  Masculine  independence  of  mind  I  hold  to  be  in  reality 
the  first  requisite'  for  the  formation  of  a  character  of  real 
manly  worth.  The  man  who  allows  himself  to  be  deceived 
and  carried  away  by  his  own  weakness,  may  be  a  very  amiable 
person  in  other  respects,  but  cannot  be  called  a  good  man  : 
such  beings  should  not  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  a  woman,  for 


VIRTUES  IN   COMMON.  57 

a  truly  beautiful  and  purely  feminine  nature  should  be  at- 
tracted only  by  what  is  highest  and  noblest  in  the  character 
of  man." 

"  Take  now  this  same  bit  of  moral  philosophy,"  she 
says,  "and  apply  it  to  the  feminine  character,  and  it 
reads  quite  as  well :  — 

"  '  Feminine  independence  of  mind  I  hold  to  be  in  reality  the 
first  requisite  for  the  formation  of  a  character  of  real  feminine 
worth.  The  woman  who  allows  herself  to  be  deceived  and 
carried  away  by  her  own  weakness,  may  be  a  very  amiable 
person  in  other  respects,  but  cannot  be  called  a  good  woman ; 
such  beings  should  not  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  a  man,  for  a 
truly  beautiful  and  purely  manly  nature  should  be  attracted  only 
by  what  is  highest  and  noblest  in  the  character  of  woman.'  " 

I  have  never  been  able  to  perceive  that  there  was 
a  quality  or  grace  of  character  which  really  belonged 
exclusively  to  either  sex,  or  which  failed  to  win  honor 
when  wisely  exercised  by  either.  It  is  not  thought 
necessary  to  have  separate  editions  of  books  on  ethical 
science,  the  one  for  man,  the  other  for  woman,  like 
almanacs  calculated  for  different  latitudes.  The  books 
that  vary  are  not  the  scientific  works,  but  little  manuals 
of  practical  application,  —  "  Duties  of  Men,"  "  Duties 
of  Women."  These  vary  with  times  and  places  :  where 
women  do  not  know  how  to  read,  no  advice  on  reading 
will  be  found  in  the  women's  manuals  ;  where  it  is  held 
wrong  for  women  to  uncover  the  face,  it  will  be  laid 
down  in  these  manuals  as  a  sin.  But  ethics  are  ethics  : 
the  great  principles  of  morals,  as  proclaimed  either  by 
science  or  by  religion,  do  not  fluctuate  for  sex ;  their 
basis  is  in  the  very  foundations  of  right  itself. 

This   grows   clearer  when   we   remember  that   it   is 


58  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

equally  true  in  mental  science.  There  is  not  one  logic 
for  men,  and  another  for  women  ;  a  separate  syllogism, 
a  separate  induction  :  the  moment  we  begin  to  state 
intellectual  principles,  that  moment  we  go  beyond  sex. 
We  deal  then  with  absolute  truth.  If  an  observation 
is  wrong,  if  a  process  of  reasoning  is  bad,  it  makes  no 
difference  who  brings  it  forward.  Any  list  of  mental 
processes,  any  inventory  of  the  contents  of  the  mind, 
would  be  identical,  so  far  as  sex  goes,  whether  compiled 
by  a  woman  or  a  man.  These  things,  like  the  circula- 
tion of  the  blood  or  the  digestion  of  food,  belong  clearly 
to  the  ground  held  in  common.  The  London  Specta- 
tor well  said  lately,  — 

"After  all,  knowledge  is  knowledge;  and  there  is  no  more 
a  specifically  feminine  way  of  describing  correctly  the  origin  of 
tlie  Lollard  movement,  or  tlie  cliaracter  of  Spenser's  poetry, 
than  there  is  a  specifically  feminine  way  of  solving  a  quadratic 
equation,  or  of  proving  the  forty-seventh  problem  of  Euclid's 
first  book." 

All  we  can  say  in  modification  of  this  is,  that  there 
is,  after  all,  a  foundation  for  the  rather  vague  item 
of  "manliness"  and  "womanliness  "  in  these  school- 
girl lists  of  duties.  There  is  a  difference,  after  all  is 
said  and  done  ;  but  it  is  something  that  eludes  analysis, 
like  the  differing  perfume  of  two  flowers  of  the  same 
genus  and  even  of  the  same  species.  The  method  of 
thought  must  be  essentially  the  same  in  both  sexes  ;  and 
yet  an  average  woman  will  put  more  flavor  of  some- 
thing we  call  itistiuct  into  her  mental  action,  and  the 
average  man  something  more  of  what  we  call  logic  into 
his.  Whipple  tells  us  that  not  a  man  guessed  the 
plot  of  Dickens's  "Great  Expectations,"  while  many 


VIRTUES   IN   COMMON.  59 

women  did ;  and  this  certainly  indicates  some  average 
difference  of  qualit}^  or  method.  So  the  average  opinions 
of  a  hundred  women,  on  some  question  of  ethics,  might 
very  probably  differ  from  the  average  of  a  hundred  men, 
while  3^et  it  remains  true  that  "  the  virtues  of  the  man 
and  the  woman  are  the  same." 


60  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XV. 

INDIVIDUAL   DIFFEREXCES. 

Blackburn,  in  liis  entertaining  book,  "Artists  and 
Arabs,"  draws  a  contrast  between  Frith's  painting  of 
the  "  Derby  Day  "  and  Rosa  Bonheur's  "  Horse  Fair," 
—  ' '  the  former  pleasing  the  eye  by  its  cleverness  and 
prettiness,  the  latter  impressing  the  spectator  by  its 
power  and  its  truthful  rendering  of  animal  life.  The 
difference  between  the  two  painters  is  probably  more 
one  of  education  than  of  natural  gifts.  But,  whilst  the 
style  of  the  former  is  grafted  on  a  fashion,  the  latter 
is  founded  on  a  rock,  —  the  result  of  a  close  study  of 
nature,  chastened  by  classic  feeling  and  a  remembrance, 
it  may  be,  of  the  friezes  of  the  Parthenon." 

Now,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  description  runs 
precisely  counter  to  the  popular  impression  as  to  the 
work  of  the  two  sexes.  Novelists  like  Charles  Reade, 
for  instance,  who  have  apparently  seen  precisely  one 
woman  in  their  lives,  and  hardly  more  than  one  man, 
and  who  keep  on  sketching  these  two  figures  most 
felicitously  and  brilliantly  thenceforward,  would  be  apt 
to  assign  these  qualities  of  the  artist  very  differently. 
Their  typical  man  would  do  the  truthful  and  powerful 
work,  and  everybody  would  say,  "How  manly!" 
Their  woman  would  please  by  cleverness  and  pretti- 
ness,   and   everbody    would   say,    "How   womanly!" 


INDIVIDUAL   DIFFEBEXCES.  61 

Yet  Blackburn  shows  us  that  these  qualities  are  in- 
dividual, not  sexual ;  that  they  result  from  tempera- 
ment, or.  he  thinks,  still  more  from  training.  If  Rosa 
Bonheur  does  better  work  than  Frith,  it  is  not  because 
she  is  a  woman,  nor  is  it  in  spite  of  that ;  but  because, 
settinjj;  sex  aside,  she  is  a  better  artist. 

This  is  not  denying  the  distinctions  of  sex,  but  only 
asserting  that  they  are  not  so  exclusive  and  all-absorb- 
hig  as  is  supposed.  It  is  eas}^  to  name  other  grounds 
of  difference  which  entirely  ignore  those  of  sex,  strik- 
ing directly  across  them,  and  rendering  a  different 
classification  necessary.  It  is  thus  with  distinctions 
of  race  or  color,  for  instance.  An  Indian  man  and 
woman  are  at  many  points  more  like  to  one  another 
than  is  either  to  a  white  person  of  the  same  sex.  A 
black-haired  man  and  woman,  or  a  fair-haired  man  and 
woman,  are  to  be  classified  together  in  these  physio- 
logical aspects.  So  of  differences  of  genius  :  a  man 
and  woman  of  musical  temperament  and  training  have 
more  in  common  than  has  either  with  a  person  who  is 
of  the  same  sex,  but  who  cannot  tell  one  note  from 
another.  So  two  persons  of  ardent  or  imaginative 
temperament  are  thus  far  alike,  though  the  gulf  of  sex 
divides  them  ;  and  so  are  two  persons  of  cold  or  pro- 
saic temperament.  In  a  mixed  school  the  teacher  can- 
not class  together  intellectually  the  boys  as  such,  and 
the  girls  as  such  :  bright  bo^'s  take  hold  of  a  lesson 
very  much  as  briglit  girls  do,  and  slow  girls  like  slow 
boys.  Nature  is  too  rich,  too  full,  too  varied,  to  be 
content  with  a  single  basis  of  classification  :  she  has 
a  hundred  sj'stems  of  grouping,  according  to  sex,  age, 
race,  temperament,  training,  and  so  on  ;    and  we  get 


62  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

but  a  narrow  view  of  life  when  we  limit  our  theories 
to  one  set  of  distinctions. 

As  a  matter  of  social  philosophy,  this  train  of  thought 
logically  leads  to  co-education,  impartial  suffrage,  and 
free  co-operation  in  all  the  affairs  of  life.  As  a  matter 
of  individual  duty,  it  teaches  the  old  moral  to  "  act 
well  5"our  part."  No  wise  person  will  ever  trouble 
himself  or  herself  much  about  the  limitations  of  sex  in 
intellectual  labor.  Rosa  Bonheur  was  not  tr3ing  to 
work  like  a  woman,  or  like  a  man,  or  unlike  either,  but 
to  do  her  work  thoroughly  and  well.  He  or  she  who 
works  in  this  spirit  works  nobly,  and  gives  an  example 
which  will  pass  beyond  the  bounds  of  sex,  and  help 
all.  The  Abbe  Liszt,  the  most  gifted  of  living  pianists, 
told  a  friend  of  mine,  his  pupil,  that  he  had  learned 
more  of  music  from  hearing  Madame  Malibran  sing, 
than  from  any  thing  else  whatever. 


ANGELIC  SUPERIOBITY.  63 


XVI. 
ANGELIC   SUPERIORITY. 

It  is  better  not  to  base  any  plea  for  woman  on 
the  gronnd  of  her  angelic  superiority.  The  argument 
proves  too  much.  If  she  is  already  so  perfect,  there 
is  every  inducement  to  let  well  alone.  It  suggests  the 
expediency  of  conforming  man's  condition  to  hers,  in- 
stead of  conforming  hers  to  man's.  If  she  is  a  winged 
creature,  and  man  can  only  crawl,  it  is  his  condition 
that  needs  mending. 

Besides,  one  may  well  lie  a  little  incredulous  of  these 
vast  claims.  Granting  some  average  advantage  to 
woman,  it  is  not  of  such  completeness  as  to  base  much 
argument  upon  it.  The  minister  looking  on  his  con- 
gregation, rarely  sees  an  unmixed  angel,  either  at  the 
head  or  at  the  foot  of  any  pew.  The  domestic  servant 
rarely  has  the  felicity  of  waiting  on  an  absolute  saint 
at  either  end  of  the  dinner-table.  The  lady's-maid  has 
to  compare  her  little  observations  of  human  infirmity 
with  those  of  the  valot-de-chambre.  The  lover  wor- 
ships the  beloved,  whether  man  or  woman  ;  but  marriage 
bears  rather  hard  on  the  ideal  in  either  case.  And 
those  who  pray  out  of  the  same  book,  "  HaA'e  mercy 
upon  us,  miseraljle  sinners,"  are  not  supposed  to  be 
offering  up  petitions  for  each  other  only. 

AVe   all  know  many  women  whose  lives  are  made 


64  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

wretched  by  the  sins  and  follies  of  their  husbands. 
There  are  also  many  men  whose  lives  are  turned  to 
long  wretchedness  by  the  selfishness,  the  worldliness, 
or  the  bad  temper  of  their  wives.  Domestic  tyranny 
belongs  to  neither  sex  by  monopoly.  If  man  tortures 
or  depresses  woman,  she  also  has  a  fearful  power  to 
corrupt  and  deprave  man.  On  the  other  hand,  to 
quote  old  Antisthenes  once  more,  "the  virtues  of  the 
man  and  woman  are  the  same."  A  refined  man  is  more 
refined  than  a  coarse  woman.  A  child-loving  man  is 
infinitely  tenderer  and  sweeter  toward  children  than  a 
hard  and  unsympathetic  woman.  The  very  qualities 
that  are  claimed  as  distinctively  feminine  are  possessed 
more  abundantly  by  many  men  than  by  many  of  what 
is  called  the  softer  sex. 

Why  is  it  necessary  to  say  all  this  ?  Because  there 
is  always  danger  that  we  who  believe  in  the  equality  of 
the  sexes  should  be  led  into  over-statements,  which 
will  re-act  against  ourselves.  It  is  not  safe  to  say  that 
the  ballot-box  would  be  reformed  if  intrusted  to  femi- 
nine votes  alone.  Had  the  voters  of  the  South  been 
all  women,  it  would  have  plunged  earlier  into  the  gulf 
of  secession,  dived  deeper,  and  come  up  even  more 
reluctantly.  Were  the  women  of  Spain  to  rule  its  des- 
tinies unchecked,  the  Pope  would  be  its  master,  and 
the  Inquisition  might  be  re-established.  For  all  that 
we  can  see,  the  rule  of  women  alone  would  be  as  bad 
as  the  rule  of  men  alone.  It  would  be  as  unsafe  to 
give  woman  the  absolute  control  of  man  as  to  make 
man  the  master  of  woman. 

Let  us  be  a  shade  more  cautious  in  our  reasonings. 
Woman  needs  equal  rights,  not  because  she  is  man's 


ANGELIC  SUPEmOIilTY.  QS 

better  half,  but  because  she  is  his  other  half.  She 
needs  them,  not  as  an  angel,  but  as  a  fraction  of 
humauit}'.  Her  political  education  will  not  merely 
help  man,  but  it  will  help  herself.  She  will  sometimes 
be  right  in  her  opinions,  and  sometimes  be  altogether 
wrong ;  but  she  will  learn,  as  man  learns,  by  her  own 
blunders.  The  demand  in  her  behalf  is,  that  she  shall 
have  the  opportunity  to  make  mistakes,  since  it  is  by 
that  means  she  must  become  wise. 

In  all  our  towns,  there  is  a  tendency  toward  "  mixed 
schools."  We  rarely  hear  of  the  sexes  being  separated 
in  a  school  after  being  once  united  ;  but  we  constantly 
hear  of  their  being  brought  together  after  separation. 
This  is  commonly,  but  mistakenly,  recommended  as  an 
advantage  to  the  boys  alone.  I  once  heard  an  accom- 
plished teacher  remonstrate  against  this  change,  when 
thus  urged.  "Why  should  my  girls  be  sacrificed," 
she  said,  "  to  improve  your  boys?  "  Six  months  after, 
she  h^d  learned  by  experience.  "Why,"  she  asked, 
"did  3^ou  rest  the  argument  on  so  narrow  a  ground? 
Since  my  school  consisted  half  of  boys,  I  find  with  sur- 
prise that  the  change  has  improved  both  sexes.  My 
girls  are  more  ambitious,  more  obedient,  and  more 
ladylike.  I  shall  never  distrust  the  policy  of  mixed 
schools  again." 

AVhat  is  true  of  the  school  is  true  of  the  family  and 
of  the  state.  It  is  not  good  for  man,  or  for  woman, 
to  be  alone.  Granting  the  woman  to  be,  on  the  whole, 
the  more  spiritually  minded,  it  is  still  true  that  each  sex 
needs  the  other.  When  the  rivet  falls  from  a  pair  of 
scissors,  we  do  not  have  them  mended  because  either 
half  can  claim  angelic  superiority  over  the  other  half, 
but  because  it  takes  two  halves  to  make  a  whole. 


Q6  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XVII. 

YICARIOUS   HONORS. 

There  is  a  stor}^  in  circulation  —  possibly  without 
authority  —  to  the  effect  that  a  certain  young  lady  has 
ascended  so  many  Alps  that  she  would  have  been 
chosen  a  member  of  the  English  Alpine  Club,  but  for 
her  misfortune  in  respect  to  sex.  As  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal recognition,  however,  and,  as  it  were,  of  approx- 
imate courtesy,  her  dog,  who  has  accompanied  her  in 
>all  her  trips,  and  is  not  debased  by  sex,  has  been 
elected  into  the  club.  She  has  therefore  an  opportu- 
nity for  exercising  in  behalf  of  her  dog  that  beautiful 
self-abnegation  which  is  said  to  be  a  part  of  woman's 
nature,  impelling  her  always  to  prefer  that  her  laurels 
should  be  worn  by  somebody  else. 

The  dog  probably  made  no  objection  to  these  vicari- 
ous honors  ;  nor  is  any  objection  made  by  the  young 
gentlemen  who  reply  eloquently  to  the  toast,  "The 
Ladies"  at  public  dinners,  or  who  kindly  consent  to 
be  educated  at  masculine  colleges  on  "  scholarships" 
founded  by  women.  At  Harvard  University  alone  there 
are  ten  such  scholarships,  —  their  income  amounting 
annually  to  $2,340  in  all.  Those  who  receive  the 
emoluments  of  these  funds  must  reflect  within  them- 
selves, occasionally,  how  grand  a  thing  is  this  power 
of  substitution  given  to  women,  and  how  pleasant  are 


VICABIOUS  uoyoES  67 

its  occasional  results  to  the  substitute.  It  is  doubtless 
more  blessed  to  give  tliau  to  receive,  but  to  receive 
without  giving  has  also  its  pleasures.  Very  likely  the 
holder  of  the  scholarship,  and  the  orator  who  rises 
with  his  hand  on  his  heart  to  "  reply  in  behalf  of  the 
ladies,"  may  do  their  appointed  work  well ;  and  so  did 
the  Alpine  dog.  Yet,  after  all,  but  for  the  work  done 
by  his  mistress,  he  would  have  won  no  more  honor 
from  the  Alpine  Club  than  if  he  had  been  a  chamois. 

Nothing  since  Artemus  AVard  and  his  wife's  rela- 
tions has  been  finer  than  the  generous  way  in  which 
fathers  and  brothers  disclaim  all  desire  for  profits  or 
honors  on  the  part  of  their  feminine  relatives.  In  a 
certain  system  of  schools  once  known  to  me,  the  boys 
had  prizes  of  money  on  certain  occasions,  but  the  suc- 
cessful girls  at  those  times  received  simply  a  testi- 
monial of  honor  for  each  ;  ''  the  committee  being  con- 
vinced," it  was  said,  "that  this  was  more  consonant 
with  the  true  delicacy  and  generosity  of  woman's  na- 
ture." So  in  the  new  arrangements  for  opening  the 
University  of  Copenhagen  to  3'oung  women,  Karl  Blind 
writes  to  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  that  it  is  ex- 
pressly provided  that  they  shall  not  "share  in  the 
academic  benefices  and  stipends  which  have  been  set 
apart  for  male  students."  Half  of  these  charities 
ma}^  for  aught  that  appears,  have  been  established 
originally  by  women,  like  the  ten  Harvard  scholarships 
already  named.  Women,  however,  can  avail  them- 
selves of  them  only  by  deputy,  as  the  Alp-climbing 
young  lady  is  represented  by  her  dog. 

It  is  all  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the  disinterestedness 
of  woman.     The  only  pity  is  that  this  virtue,  so  much 


68  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

admired,  should  not  be  reciprocated  by  showing  the 
like  disinterestedness  toward  her.  It  does  not  appear 
that  the  butchers  and  bakers  of  Copenhagen  propose 
to  reduce  in  the  case  of  women  students  "the  bene- 
fices and  stipends ' '  which  are  to  be  paid  for  daily 
food.  Young  ladies  at  the  university  are  only  pro- 
hibited from  receiving  money,  not  from  needing  it. 
Nor  will  any  of  the  necessary  fatigues  of  Alpine 
climbing  be  relaxed  for  any  young  lady  because  she 
is  a  woman.  The  fatigues  will  remain  in  full  force, 
though  the  laurels  be  denied.  The  mountain-passes 
will  make  small  account  of  the  ' '  tenderness  and  deli- 
cacy of  her  sex."  When  the  toil  is  over  she  will  be 
regarded  as  too  delicate  to  be  thanked  for  it ;  but,  by 
way  of  compensation,  the  Alpine  Club  will  allow  her 
to  be  represented  by  her  dog. 


THE  GOSPEL    OF  HUMILIATION. 


XVIII. 

THE   GOSPEL   OF   HUMILIATIOX. 

"The  silliest  man  who  ever  lived,"  wrote  Fanny 
Fern  once,  "  has  alwa^'s  known  enough,  when  he  saj's 
his  praj^ers,  to  thank  God  he  was  not  born  a  woman." 

President of College  is  not  a  silly  man  at  all, 

and  he  is  devoting  his  life  to  the  education  of  women  ; 
yet  he  seems  to  feel  as  vividly  conscious  of  his  superior 
position  as  even  Fanny  Fern  could  wish.  If  he  had 
been  born  a  Jew,  he  would  have  thanked  God,  in  the 
appointed  ritual,  for  not  having  made  him  a  woman. 
If  he  had  been  a  Mohammedan,  he  would  have  accepted 
the  rule  which  forbids  "  a  fool,  a  madman,  or  a  woman  " 
to  summon  the  faithful  to  prayer.  Being  a  Christian 
clergyman,  with  several  hundred  immortal  souls,  clothed 
in  female  bodies,  under  his  charge,  he  thinks  it  his  duty, 
at  proper  intervals,  to  notify  his  young  ladies,  that, 
though  they  may  share  with  men  the  glory  of  being 
sophomores,  they  still  are  in  a  position,  as  regards  the 
other  sex,  of  hopeless  subordination.  This  is  the  cli- 
max of  his  discourse,  which  in  its  earlier  portions  con- 
tains  many  good  and  trutliful  things  :  — 

'•'And,  as  the  woman  is  different  from  the  man,  so  is  she 
relative  to  him.  This  is  true  on  the  other  side  also.  They  are 
bound  together  by  mutual  relationship  so  intimate  and  vital 
that  the   existence   of  neither  is  absolutely  complete  except 


70  C0M2WN  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

with  reference  to  the  other.  But  there  is  this  difference,  that 
the  lelation  of  woman  is,  characteristically,  that  of  subordi- 
nation and  dependence.  This  does  not  imply  inferiority  of 
character,  of  capacity,  of  value,  in  the  sight  of  God  or  man; 
and  it  has  been  the  glory  of  woman  to  have  accepted  the  posi- 
tion of  formal  inferiority  assigned  her  by  the  Creator,  with  all 
its  responsibilities,  its  trials,  its  possible  outward  humiliations 
and  sufferings,  in  the  proud  consciousness  that  it  is  not  in- 
compatible with  an  essential  superiority;  that  it  does  not 
prevent  her  from  occupying,  if  she  will,  an  inward  elevation 
of  character,  from  which  she  may  look  down  with  pitying  and 
helpful  love  on  him  she  calls  her  lord.  Jesus  said,  '  Ye  know 
that  the  princes  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  dominion  over  them, 
and  they  that  are  great  exercise  authority  upon  them.  But  it 
shall  not  be  so  among  you;  but  whosoever  will  be  great  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  minister;  and  whosoever  will  be  chief 
among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant,  even  as  the  Son  of  man 
came,  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to  give 
his  life  a  ransom  for  many.'  Surely  woman  need  not  hesitate 
to  estimate  her  status  by  a  criterion  of  dignity  sustained  by 
such  authority.  She  need  not  shrink  from  a  position  which 
was  sought  by  the  Son  of  God,  and  in  whose  trials  and  griefs 
she  will  have  his  sympathy  and  companionship." 

There  is  a  comforting  aspect  to  this  discourse,  after 
all.  It  holds  out  the  hope,  that  a  particularly  noble 
woman  may  not  be  personally  inferior  to  a  remarkably 
bad  husband,  but  "may  look  downi  with  pitying  and 
helpful  love  on  him  she  calls  her  lord.  "  The  draw- 
back is  not  merely  that  it  insults  woman  by  a  re- 
assertion  of  a  merely  historical  inferiority,  which  is 
steadily  diminishing,  but  that  it  fortifies  this  by  pre- 
cisely the  same  talk  about  the  dignity  of  subordination 
wdiich  has  been  used  to  buttress  every  oppression  since 
the  world  began.  Never  yet  was  there  a  pious  slave- 
holder who  did  not  quote    to    his   slaves,  on  Sunday, 


THE   GOSPEL    OF  HUMILIATION. 


precisely  the   same    texts  with  which   President  

favors  his  meek  3'OUDg  pupils.  Never  3'et  was  there  a 
slaveholder  who  would  not  shoot  through  the  head,  if 
he  had  courage  enough,  anybody  who  should  attempt 
to  place  him  in  that  beautiful  position  of  subjection 
whose  spiritual  merits  he  had  been  proclaiming.  AVlicn 
it  came  to  that,  he  was  like  Thoreau,  who  believed 
resignation  to  be  a  virtue,  but  preferred  "  not  to  practise 
it  unless  it  was  quite  necessary." 

Thus,  when  the  Rev.  Charles  C.  Jones  of  Savannah 
used  to  address  the  slaves  on  their  condition,  he  pro- 
claimed the  beaut}^  of  obedience  in  a  way  to  bring  tears 
to  their  eyes.  And  this,  he  frankly  assures  the  mas- 
ters, is  the  wa}^  to  check  insurrection  and  advance  their 
own  "pecuniary  interests."  He  says  of  the  slave, 
that  under  proper  religious  instruction  "  his  conscience 
is  enlightened  and  his  soul  is  awed  ;  ...  to  God  he 
commits  the  ordering  of  his  lot,  and  in  his  station 
renders  to  all  their  dues,  obedience  to  whom  obedience, 
and  honor  to  whom  honor.  He  dares  not  wrest  from 
God  his  oicn  care  and  protection.  While  he  sees  a  pref- 
erence in  the  various  conditions  of  men,  he  remembers 
the  words  of  the  apostle  :  '  Art  thou  called  being  a 
servant?  Care  not  for  it ;  but,  if  thou  mayst  be  free, 
use  it  rather.  For  he  that  is  called  in  the  Lord,  being 
a  servant,  is  the  Lord's  freeman  ;  likewise,  also,  he 
that  is  called  being  free,  is  Christ's  servant.'  "  ^ 

I"  must   say   that   the    Rev.  Mr.  Jones's  preaching 

seems  to  me  precisely  as  good  as  Dr. 's,  and  that  a 

sensible  woman  ought  to  be  as  much  influenced  by  the 
one  as  was  Frederick  Douglass  by  the  other  —  that  is, 

1  Religious  Instruction  of  the  Negroes.     Savannah,  18-12,  pp.  208-211. 


72  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

not  at  all.  Let  the  preacher  try  "  subordination  "  him- 
self, and  see  how  he  likes  it.  The  beauty  of  service, 
such  as  Jesus  praised,  lay  in  the  willingness  of  the 
service :  a  service  that  is  serfdom  loses  all  beauty, 
whether  rendered  by  man  or  by  woman.  My  objection 
to  separate  schools  and  colleges  for  women  is,  that  they 
are  too  apt  to  end  in  such  instructions  as  this. 


CELERY  AND   CHERUBS."  73 


XIX. 

"CELERY  AND  CHERUBS." 

There  was  once  a  real  or  imaginar}^  old  lady  who 
had  got  the  metaphor  of  Scylla  and  Charj^bdis  a  little 
confused.  Wishing  to  describe  a  perplexing  situation, 
this  lady  said,  — 

"You  see,  my  dear,  she  was  between  Celery  on  one 
side  and  Cherubs  on  the  other  !  You  know  about  Celery 
and  Cherabs,  don't  you?  They  was  two  rocks  some- 
where ;  and  if  you  didn't  hit  one,  you  was  pretty  sure 
to  run  smack  on  the  other." 

This  describes,  as  a  clever  writer  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  declares,  the  present  condition  of  women  who 
"agitate."  Their  Celery  and  Cheinibs  are  tears  and 
temper. 

It  is  a  good  hit,  and  we  may  well  make  a  note  of  it. 
It  is  the  danger  of  all  reformers,  that  they  will  vibrate 
between  discouragement  and  anger.  When  things  go 
wrong,  what  is  it  one's  impulse  to  do?  To  be  cast 
down,  or  to  be  stirred  up ;  to  wring  one's  hands,  or 
clench  one's  fists,  — in  short,  tears  or  temper. 

"  Mother,"  said  a  resolute  little  girl  of  my  acquaint- 
ance, "if  the  dinner  was  all  spoiled,  I  wouldn't  sit 
down,  and  cry!  I'd  say,  '  Hang  it ! '  "  This  cherub 
preferred  the  alternative  of  temper,  on  daj^s  when  the 
celery  turned  out  badly.     Probably  her   mother   was 


74  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

addicted  to  the  other  practice,  and  exhibited  the 
tears. 

But  as  this  alternative  is  found  to  exist  for  both 
sexes,  and  on  all  occasions,  why  charge  it  especially 
on  the  woman-suffrage  movement?  Men  are  certainly 
as  much  given  to  ill  temper  as  women  ;  and,  if  they 
are  less  inclined  to  tears,  they  make  it  up  in  sulks, 
which  are  just  as  bad.  Nicholas  Nickleb}^,  when  the 
pump  was  frozen,  was  advised  by  Mr.  Squeers  to 
''  content  himself  witli  a  dr}^  polisli ;  "  and  so  there  is  a 
kind  of  dr}^  despair  into  which  men  fall,  which  is  quite 
as  forlorn  as  any  tears  of  women.  How  many  a  man 
has  doubtless  wished  at  such  times  that  the  pump  of 
his  lachrymal  glands  could  only  thaw  out,  and  he  could 
give  his  emotions  something  more  than  a  "  dry  polish  "  ! 
The  unspeakable  comfort  some  women  feel  in  sitting 
for  ten  minutes  with  a  handkerchief  over  their  eyes  ! 
The  freshness,  the  heartiness,  the  new  life  visible  in 
them,  when  the  crying  is  done,  and  the  handkerchief 
comes  down  again ! 

And,  indeed,  this  simple  statement  brings  us  to  the 
real  truth,  which  should  have  been  more  clearly  seen 
b}'^  the  writer  who  tells  this  story.  She  is  wrong  in 
saying,  "It  is  urged  that  men  and  women  stand  on 
an  equalit}^  are  exactly  alike."  Many  of  us  urge  the 
"  equality :  "  very  few  of  us  urge  the  "  exactly  alike." 
An  apple  and  an  orange,  a  potato  and  a  tomato,  a  rose 
and  a  lil}^,  the  Episcopal  and  the  Presb3^terian  churches, 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Yale  and  Harvard,  —  we  may 
surely  grant  equality  in  each  case,  without  being  so 
exceedingly  foolish  as  to  go  on  and  say  that  they  are 
exactly  alike. 


"  CELERY  AXD    CHEEUBS."  75 

And  precisely  here  is  the  weak  point  of  the  whole 
case,  as  presented  by  this  writer.  Women  give  way 
to  tears  more  readily  than  men?  Granted.  Is  their 
sex  any  the  weaker  for  it  ?  Not  a  bit.  It  is  simply  a 
difference  of  temperament :  that  is  all.  It  involves  no 
inferiority.  If  yon  think  that  this  habit  necessarily 
means  weakness,  wait  and  see  !  Who  has  not  seen 
women  break  down  in  tears  during  some  domestic  ca- 
lamity, while  the  "  stronger  sex  "  were  calm  ;  and  who 
has  not  seen  those  same  women,  that  temporary  ex- 
citement being  over,  rise  up  and  dry  their  eyes,  and  be 
thenceforth  the  support  and  stay  of  their  households, 
and  perhaps  bear  up  the  "stronger  sex"  as  a  stream 
bears  up  a  ship  ?  I  said  once  to  an  experienced  phy- 
sician, watching  such  a  woman,  "  That  woman  is  really 
great."  —  "Of  course  she  is,"  he  answered  :  "  did  you 
ever  see  a  woman  who  was  not  great,  when  the  emer- 
gency required?  " 

Now,  will  women  carry  this  same  quality  of  tempera- 
ment into  their  public  career?  Doubtless:  otherwise 
they  would  cease  to  be  women.  Will  it  be  betraying 
confidence  if  I  own  that  I  have  seen  two  of  the  very 
bravest  women  of  my  acquaintance  —  women  who  have 
swayed  great  audiences  —  burst  into  tears,  during  a 
committee-meeting,  at  a  moment  of  unexpected  adver- 
sity for  "  the  cause  "  ?  How  pitiable  !  our  critical  ob- 
servers would  have  thought.  In  five  minutes  that  April 
shower  had  passed,  and  those  women  were  as  resolute 
and  unconquerable  as  Queen  Elizabeth  :  they  were  again 
the  natural  leaders  of  those  around  them ;  and  the  cool 
and  tearless  men  who  sat  beside  them  were  nothing  — • 
men  were  "a  lost  art,"  as  some  one  says  —  compared 


76  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

with  the    inexhaustible   moral    vitality   of    those    two 
women. 

No  :  the  clangers  of  "  Celery  and  Cherubs  "  are  ex- 
aggerated. For  temper,  women  are  as  good  as  men, 
and  no  better.  As  for  tears,  long  may  they  flow ! 
They  are  symbols  of  that  mighty  distinction  of  sex 
which  is  as  ineffaceable  and  as  essential  as  the  differ- 
ence between  land  and  sea. 


THE  NEED   OF  CAVALRY.  77 


XX. 

THE  XEED  or   CAVALRY. 

In  the  interesting  Buddhist  book,  ' '  The  Wheel  of 
the  Law,"  transUited  by  Henry  Alabaster,  there  is  an 
account  of  a  certain  priest  who  used  to  bless  a  great 
king,  saying,  "  May  3'our  majesty  have  the  firmness  of 
a  crow,  the  audacity  of  a  woman,  the  endurance  of  a 
vulture,  and  the  strength  of  an  ant."  The  priest  then 
told  anecdotes  illustrating  all  of  these  qualities.  "Who 
has  not  known  occasions  wherein  some  daring  woman 
has  been  the  Joan  of  Arc  of  a  perfectly  hopeless  cause, 
taken  it  up  where  men  shrank,  carried  it  through  where 
they  had  failed,  and  conquered  by  weapons  which  men 
would  never  have  thought  of  using,  and  would  have 
lacked  faith  to  employ  even  if  put  into  their  hands? 
The  wit,  the  resources,  the  audacity  of  women,  have 
been  the  key  to  history  and  the  staple  of  novels,  ever 
since  that  larger  novel  called  history  began  to  be 
written. 

How  is  it  done?  Who  knows  the  secret  of  their 
success  ?  All  that  any  man  can  sa}^  is,  that  the  heart 
enters  largely  into  the  magic.  Rogers  asserts  in  his 
'"Table-Talk,"  that  often,  when  doubting  how  to  act 
in  matters  of  imjwrtance,  he  had  received  more  useful 
advice  from  women  than  from  men.  "Women  have 
the  understanding  of  the  heart,"  he  said,   "which  is 


78  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

better  than  that  of  the  head."  Then  this  instinct,  that 
begins  from  the  heart,  readies  the  heart  also,  and 
througli  that  controls  the  will.  "Win  hearts,"  said 
Lord  Burleigh  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  "and  you  have 
hands  and  purses  ;  ' '  and  the  greatest  of  English  sov- 
ereigns, in  spite  of  ugliness  and  rouge,  in  spite  of 
coarseness  and  cruelty  and  bad  passions,  was  adored 
by  the  nation  that  she  first  made  great. 

It  seems  to  me  that  women  are  a  sort  of  cavalry  force 
in  the  army  of  mankind.  They  are  not  always  to  be 
relied  upon  for  that  steady  "  hammering  away,"  which 
was  Grant's  one  method  ;  l)ut  there  is  a  certain  Sheri- 
dan quality  about  them,  light-armed,  audacious,  quick, 
irresistible.  They  go  before  the  main  army ;  their 
swift  wits  go  scouting  far  in  advance  ;  they  are  the  first 
to  scent  danger,  or  to  spy  out  chances  of  success. 
Their  charge  is  like  that  of  a  Tartar  horde,  or  the  wild 
sweep  of  the  Apaches.  They  are  upon  you  from  some 
wholly  unexpected  quarter :  and  this  respectable,  sys- 
tematic, well-drilled  masculine  force  is  caught  and  rolled 
over  and  over  in  the  dust,  before  the  man  knows  what 
has  hit  him.  But,  even  if  repelled  and  beaten  off,  this 
formidable  cavalry  is  unconquered  :  routed  and  in  con- 
fusion to-day,  it  comes  back  upon  you  to-morrow  — 
fresh,  alert,  with  new  devices,  bringing  new  dangers. 
In  dealing  with  it,  as  the  French  complained  of  the 
Arabs  in  Algiers,  "Peace  is  not  to  be  purchased  by 
victory."  And,  even  if  all  seems  lost,  with  what  a 
brilliant  final  charge  it  will  cover  a  retreat ! 

Decidedly,  we  need  cavalry.  In  older  countries, 
where  it  has  been  a  merely  undisciplined  and  irregular 
force,  it  has  often  done  mischief  ;  and  public  men,  from 


THE  NEED   OF  CAVALRY.  79 

Demosthenes  down,  have  been  lamenting  that  measures 
which  the  statesman  has  meditated  a  whole  year,  may 
be  overturned  in  a  day  by  a  woman.  Under  our  Amer- 
ican government  we  have  foolishly  attempted  to  leave 
out  this  arm  of  the  service  altogether ;  and  much  of 
the  alleged  dulness  of  our  American  history  has  come 
from  this  attempt.  Those  who  have  been  trained  in 
the  various  reforms  where  woman  has  taken  an  equal 
part  —  the  anti-slavery  reform  especially  —  know  well 
how  much  of  the  energy,  the  dash,  the  daring,  of  those 
movements,  have  come  from  her.  A  revolution  with  a 
woman  in  it  is  stronger  than  the  established  order  that 
omits  her.  It  is  not  that  she  is  superior  to  man,  but 
she  is  different  from  man  ;  and  we  can  no  more  spare 
her  than  we  could  spare  the  cavalry  from  an  army. 


80  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT  WOMEN, 


XXT. 

"THE   REASON   FIRM,  THE    TEMPERATE  WILL." 

It  is  a  part  of  the  necessary  theory  of  republican 
government,  that  every  class  and  race  shall  be  judged 
by  its  highest  types,  not  its  lowest.  The  proposition 
of  the  French  revolutionary  statesman,  to  begin  the 
work  of  purifying  the  world  l)y  arresting  all  the  cowards 
and  knaves,  is  liable  to  the  objection  that  it  would  find 
victims  in  every  circle.  Republican  government  begins 
at  the  other  end,  and  assumes  that  the  community  gen- 
erally has  good  intentions  at  least,  and  some  common 
sense,  however  it  may  be  with  individuals.  Take  the 
very  quality  which  the  newspapers  so  often  deny  to 
women,  —  the  quality  of  steadiness.  "In  fact,  men's 
great  objection  to  the  entrance  of  the  female  mind  into 
politics  is  drawn  from  a  suspicion  of  its  unsteadiness 
on  matters  in  which  the  feelings  could  by  any  possibility 
be  enlisted."  Thus  says  the  New  York  Nation.  Let 
us  consider  this  implied  charge  against  women,  and 
consider  it  not  by  generalizing  from  a  single  instance, 
■ —  "  just  like  a  woman,"  as  the  editors  would  doubtless 
say,  if  a  woman  had  done  it,  —  but  by  observing  whole 
classes  of  that  sex,  taken  together. 

These  classes  need  some  care  in  selection,  for  the 
plain  reason  that  there  are  comparatively  few  circles 
in  which  women  have  yet  been  allowed  enough  freedom 


"REASON  FIBM,    TEMPEBATE    WILL/'       81 

of  scope,  or  have  acted  sufficiently  on  the  same  plane 
with  men,  to  furnish  a  fair  estimate  of  their  probable 
action,  were  they  enfranchised.  Still  there  occur  to 
me  three  such  classes,  —  the  anti-slavery  women,  the 
Quaker  women,  and  the  women  who  conduct  philan- 
thropic operations  in  our  large  cities.  If  the  alleged 
unsteadiness  of  women  is  to  be  felt  in  public  affairs,  it 
would  have  been  felt  in  these  organizations.  Has  it 
been  so  felt? 

Of  the  anti-slavery  movement  I  can  personally  tes- 
tif}^,  —  and  I  have  heard  the  same  point  fully  recognized 
among  my  elders,  such  as  Garrison,  Phillips,  and  Quincy, 
—  that  the  women  coutriljuted  their  full  share,  if  not 
more  than  their  share,  to  the  steadiness  of  that  move- 
ment, even  in  times  when  the  feelings  were  most  ex- 
cited, as,  for  instance,  in  fugitive-slave  cases.  AVho 
that  has  seen  mobs  practically  put  down,  and  maj^ors 
cowed  into  decency,  by  the  silent  dignity  of  those  rows 
of  women  who  sat,  with  their  knitting,  more  imper- 
turbable than  the  men,  can  read  without  a  smile  these 
doubts  of  the  "steadiness"  of  that  sex?  Again, 
among  QuaKer  women,  I  have  asked  the  opinion  of 
prominent  Friends,  as  of  John  G.  Whittier,  whether  it 
has  been  the  experience  of  that  body  that  women  were 
more  flighty  and  unsteady  than  men  in  their  official 
action  ;  and  have  been  uniformly  answered  in  the  nega- 
tive. And  finally,  as  to  benevolent  organizations,  a 
good  test  is  given  in  the  fact,  —  first  pointed  out,  I  be- 
lieve, by  that  eminently  practical  philanthropist.  Rev. 
Augustus  Woodbury  of  Providence, — that  the  whole 
tendency  has  been,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  to  put 
the   management,  even   the   financial   control,  of   our 


-f(p50 


82  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

benevolent  societies,  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of 
women,  and  that  there  has  never  been  the  slightest  rea- 
son to  reverse  this  policy.  Ask  the  secretaries  of  the 
various  boards  of  State  Charities,  or  the  officers  of  the 
Social  Science  Associations,  if  they  have  found  reason 
to  complain  of  the  want  of  steadfast  qualities  in  the 
"  weaker  sex."  Wh}^  is  it  that  the  legislation  of  Mas- 
sachusetts has  assigned  the  class  requiring  the  steadiest 
of  all  supervision  —  the  imprisoned  convicts  —  to  "five 
commissioners  of  prisons,  two  of  whom  shall  be  wo- 
men ' '  ?  These  are  the  points  which  it  would  be  worthy 
of  our  journals  to  consider,  instead  of  hastily  generaliz- 
ing from  single  instances.  Let  us  appeal  from  the 
typical  woman  of  the  editorial  picture,  —  fickle,  un- 
steady, foolish, — to  the  nobler  conception  of  woman- 
hood which  the  poet  Wordsworth  found  fulfilled  in  his 
own  household :  — 

"  A  being  breathing  thoughtful  breath, 
A  traveller  betwixt  life  and  death; 
The  reason  jinn,  the  temperate  will; 
Endurance,  for esig lit,  strength  and  skill; 
A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  to  command, 
And  yet  a  spirit  still,  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel  light." 


"ALLUEES   TO  BBIGHTEB    WORLDS:'        83 


XXII. 

"ALLURES   TO   BRIGHTER  WORLDS,   AND 
LEADS   THE   WAY." 

"\Yhen  the  Massachusetts  House  of  Representatives 
had  "  School  Suffrage  "  under  consideration,  the  other 
day,  the  suggestion  was  made  by  one  of  the  pithiest 
and  quaintest  of  the  speakers,  that  men  were  always 
better  for  the  societ}^  of  women,  and  therefore  ought 
to  vote  in  their  company.  "If  all  of  us,"  he  said, 
"would  stay  away  from  all  places  where  we  cannot 
take  our  wives  and  daughters  with  us,  we  should  keep 
better  company  than  we  now  do."  This  expresses  a 
feeling  which  grows  more  and  more  common  among 
the  better  class  of  men,  and  which  is  the  key  to  much 
progress  in  the  condition  of  women.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  increased  association  of  the  sexes  in 
society,  in  school,  in  literature,  tends  to  purify  these 
several  spheres  of  action.  Yet,  when  we  come  to 
philosophize  on  this,  there  occur  some  perplexities  on 
the  way. 

For  instance,  the  exclusion  of  woman  from  all  these 
spheres  was  in  ancient  Greece  almost  complete  ;  yet 
the  leading  Greek  poets,  as  Homer  and  the  tragedians, 
are  exceedingly  chaste  in  tone,  and  in  this  respect  be- 
yond most  of  the  great  poets  of  modern  nations.  Again, 
no  Em'opean  nation  has  quite  so  far  sequestered  and 


84  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

subordinated  women  as  has  Spain  ;  and  yet  the  whole 
tone  of  Spanish  literature  is  conspicuously  grave  and 
decorous.  This  plainl}^  indicates  that  race  has  much 
to  do  with  the  matter,  and  that  the  mere  admission  or 
exclusion  of  women  is  but  one  among  several  factors. 
In  short,  it  is  easy  to  make  out  a  case  by  a  rhetorical 
use  of  the  facts  on  one  side  ;  but,  if  we  look  at  all  the 
facts,  the  matter  presents  greater  difficulities. 

Again,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  in  several  countries 
the  first  women  who  have  taken  prominent  part  in  lit- 
erature have  been  as  bad  as  the  men  ;  as,  for  instance, 
Marguerite  of  Navarre  and  Mrs.  Aplira  Behn.  This 
might  indeed  be  explained  by  supposing  that  they  had 
to  gain  entrance  into  literature  by  accepting  the  disso- 
lute standards  which  the}^  found  prevailing.  But  it 
would  probably  be  more  correct  to  say  that  these 
standards  themselves  were  variable,  and  that  their  va- 
riation affected,  at  certain  periods,  women  as  well  as 
men.  Marguerite  of  Navarre  wrote  religious  books  as 
well  as  merr}'  stories  ;  and  we  know  from  Lockhart's 
Life  of  Scott,  that  ladies  of  high  character  in  Edin- 
burgh used  to  read  Mrs.  Behn's  tales  and  plays  aloud, 
at  one  time,  with  delight,  —  although  one  of  the  same 
ladies  found,  in  her  old  age,  that  she  could  not  read 
them  to  herself  without  blushing.  Shakspeare  puts 
coarse  repartees  hito  the  mouths  of  women  of  stainless 
virtue.  George  Sand  is  not  considered  an  unexcep- 
tionable writer ;  but  she  tells  us  in  her  autobiography 
that  she  found  among  her  grandmother's  papers  poems 
and  satires  so  indecent  that  she  could  not  read  them 
through,  and  yet  they  bore  the  names  of  ahhes  and 
gentlemen  whom  she  remembered  in  her  childhood  as 


"ALLUBES    TO   BRIGHTEE    WOBLDS/'         85 

models  of  dignity  and  honor.  Voltaire  inscribes  to 
ladies  of  high  rank,  who  doubtless  regarded  it  as  a 
great  compliment,  verses  such  as  not  even  a  poet  of  the 
English  '•  fleshl}^  school  "  would  now  print  at  all.  In 
'-  Poems  by  Eminent  Ladies,"  — published  in  1755  and 
reprinted  in  1774,  —  there  are  one  or  two  poems  as 
gross  and  disgusting  as  any  thing  in  Swift ;  yet  their 
authors  were  thought  reputable  women.  Allan  Ram- 
say's ''  Tea-Table  Miscellany  "  — a  collection  of  Eng- 
lish and  Scottish  songs  —  was  first  published  in  1724; 
and  in  his  preface  to  the  sixteenth  edition  the  editor 
attributes  its  great  success,  especially  among  the 
ladies,  to  the  fact  that  he  has  carefull}^  excluded  all 
grossness,  '^  that  the  modest  voice  and  ear  of  the  fair 
singer  might  meet  with  no  affront;"  and  adds,  "the 
chief  bent  of  all  my  studies  being  to  attain  their  good 
graces."  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  great  popularity 
enjoyed  by  the  book  in  all  circles  ;  yet  it  contains  a 
few  songs  which  the  most  licentious  newspaper  would 
not  now  publish.  The  inference  is  irresistible,  from 
this  and  many  other  similar  facts,  that  the  whole  tone 
of  manners  and  decency  has  very  greatly  improved 
among  the  European  races  within  a  century  and  a  half. 
I  suspect  the  truth  to  be,  that,  besides  the  visible 
influence  of  race  and  religion,  there  has  been  an  insen- 
sible and  almost  unconscious  improvement  in  each  sex, 
with  respect  to  these  matters,  as  time  has  passed  on  ; 
and  that  the  mutual  desire  to  please  has  enabled  each 
sex  to  help  the  other,  —  the  sex  which  is  naturally  the 
more  refined  taking  the  lead.  But  I  should  lay  more 
stress  on  this  mutual  influence,  and  less  on  mere  femi- 
nine superiority,   than  ^vould  be  laid  by  many.     It  is 


86  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

often  claimed  by  teachers  that  co-education  helps  not 
only  boys,  but  also  girls,  to  develop  greater  propriety 
of  manners.  When  the  sexes  are  wholly  separate,  or 
associate  on  terms  of  entire  inequality,  no  such  good 
influence  occurs  :  the  more  equal  the  association,  the 
better  for  both  parties.  After  all,  the  Divine  model  is 
to  be  found  in  the  family  ;  and  the  best  ingenuity  can- 
not improve  much  upon  it. 


THE   HOME. 


"In  respect  to  the  powers  and  rights  of  married  women, 
the  law  is  by  no  means  abreast  of  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Here 
are  seen  the  old  fossil  footprints  of  feudalism.  The  law  relat- 
ing to  woman  tends  to  make  every  family  a  barony  or  a 
monarchy  or  a  despotism,  of  which  the  husband  is  the  baron, 
king,  or  despot,  and  the  wife  the  dependent,  serf,  or  slave. 
That  this  is  not  always  the  fact,  is  not  due  to  the  law,  but 
to  the  enlarged  humanity  which  spurns  the  narrow  limits  of 
its  rules.  The  progress  of  civilization  has  changed  the  family 
from  a  barony  to  a  republic ;  but  the  law  has  not  kept  pace 
with  the  advance  of  ideas,  manners,  and  customs."  —  W.  W. 
Story's  Treatise  on  Contracts  not  under  Seal,  §  84, — third 
edition,  p.  89. 


WANTED  —  HOMES.  89 


XXIII. 

WAXTED  —  HOMES. 

We  see  advertisements,  occasionally,  of  "  Homes  for 
Aged  Women,"  and  more  rarely  "Homes  for  Aged 
Men."  The  question  sometimes  suggests  itself,  whether 
it  would  not  be  better  to  begin  the  provision  earlier, 
and  see  that  homes  are  also  provided,  in  some  form, 
for  the  middle-aged  and  even  the  young.  The  trouble 
is,  I  suppose,  that  as  it  takes  two  to  make  a  bargain, 
so  it  takes  at  least  two  to  make  a  home  ;  and  unluckily 
it  takes  only  one  to  spoil  it. 

Madame  Roland  once  defined  marriage  as  an  institu- 
tion where  one  person  undertakes  to  provide  happiness 
for  two ;  and  many  failures  are  accounted  for,  no 
doubt,  by  this  false  basis.  Sometimes  it  is  the  man, 
more  often  the  woman,  of  whom  this  extravagant  de- 
mand is  made.  There  are  marriages  which  have  proved 
a  wreck  almost  wholly  through  the  fault  of  the  wife. 
Nor  is  this  confined  to  wedded  homes  alone.  I  have 
known  a  son  who  lived  alone,  patiently  and  uncom- 
plainingly, with  that  saddest  of  all  conceivable  com- 
panions, a  drunken  mother.  I  have  known  another 
young  man  who  supported  in  his  own  home  a  mother 
and  sister,  both  habitual  drunkards.  All  these  were 
American-born,  and  all  of  respectable  social  position. 
A  home  shadowed  l)v  su  'h  misorv  is  iK)t  a  home,  though 


90  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

it  might  have  been  a  home  but  for  the  sins  of  women. 
Such  instances  are,  liowever,  rare  and  occasional  com- 
pared with  the  cases  where  the  same  offence  in  the  hus- 
band makes  ruin  of  the  home. 

Then  there  are  the  cases  where  indolence,  or  selfish- 
ness, or  vanity,  or  the  love  of  social  excitement,  in  the 
woman,  unfits  her  for  home  life.  Here  we  come  upon 
ground  where  perhaps  woman  is  the  greater  sinner.  It 
must  be  remembered,  however,  that  against  this  must 
be  balanced  the  neglect  produced  by  club-life,  or  by 
the  life  of  society-membership,  in  a  man.  A  brilliant 
young  married  belle  in  London  once  told  me  that  she 
was  glad  her  husband  was  so  fond  of  his  club,  for 
it  amused  him  every  night  while  she  went  to  balls. 
"  Married  men  do  not  go  much  into  society  here,"  she 
said,  ''  unless  they  are  regular  flirts,  — which  I  do  not 
think  my  husband  would  ever  be,  for  he  is  very  fond 
of  me, — so  he  goes  every  night  to  his  club,  and  gets 
home  about  the  same  time  that  I  do.  It  is  a  ver}^  nice 
arrangement."  It  was  apparently  spoken  in  all  the 
fearlessness  of  innocence,  but  I  believe  that  it  has  since 
ended  in  a  "separation." 

It  is  common  to  denounce  club-life  in  our  large  cities 
as  destructive  of  the  home.  The  modern  club  is  sim- 
ply a  more  refined  substitute  for  the  old-fashioned 
tavern,  and  is  on  the  whole  an  advance  in  morals  as 
well  as  manners.  In  our  large  cities  a  man  in  a  cer- 
tain social  coterie  belongs  to  a  club,  if  he  can  afford  it, 
as  a  means  of 'contact  with  his  fellows,  and  to  have 
various  conveniences  which  he  cannot  so  economically 
obtain  at  home.  A  few  haunt  them  constantly :  the 
many    use    them    occasionally.      More    absorl)ing   than 


WANTED  —  HOMES.  91 

clubs,  perhaps,  are  the  secret  societies  which  have  so 
revived  among  us  since  the  war,  and  which  consume 
time  so  fearfully.  There  was  a  case  mentioned  in  the 
newspapers  lately  of  a  man  who  belonged  to  some 
twenty  of  these  associations  ;  and  when  he  died,  and 
each  wished  to  conduct  his  funeral,  great  was  the 
strife  !  In  the  small  city  where  I  write,  there  are  seven- 
teen secret  societies  down  in  the  directory,  and  I  sup- 
pose as  many  more  not  so  conspicuous.  I  meet  men 
who  assure  me  that  they  habitually  attend  a  society- 
meeting  every  evening  of  the  week  except  Sunday,  and 
a  church  meeting  then.  These  are  rarely  men  of  leisure  : 
they  are  usually  mechanics  or  business  men  of  some 
kind,  who  are  hard  at  work  all  day,  and  never  see  their 
families  except  at  meal-times.  Their  case  is  far  worse, 
so  far  as  absence  from  home  is  concerned,  than  that  of 
the  ' '  club-men ' '  of  large  cities  ;  for  these  are  often 
men  of  leisure,  who,  if  married,  at  least  make  home 
one  of  their  lounging-places,  which  the  secret-society 
men  do  not. 

I  honestly  believe  that  this  melanchoW  desertion  of 
the  home  is  largely  due  to  the  traditional  separation 
between  the  alleged  spheres  of  the  sexes.  Tlie  theory 
still  prevails  largely,  that  home  is  the  peculiar  province 
of  the  woman,  that  she  has  almost  no  duties  out  of  it ; 
and  hence,  naturally  enough,  that  the  husband  has  al- 
most no  duties  in  it.  If  he  is  amused  there,  let  him 
stay  there  ;  but,  as  it  is  not  his  recognized  sphere  of 
duty,  he  is  not  actually  violating  any  dut}'^  by  absenting 
himself.  This  theory  even  pervades  our  manuals  of 
morals,  of  metaphysics,  and  of  popular  science  ;  and 
it  is  not  every  public  teacher  who  has  the  manliness, 


92  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

having  once  stated  it,  to  modify  his  statement,  as  did 
the  venerable  President  Hopkins  of  Williams  College, 
when  lecturing  the  other  day  to  the  3'oung  ladies  of 
Vassar. 

"  I  would,"  he  said,  "  at  this  point  correct  my  teach- 
ing in  '  The  Law  of  Love '  to  the  effect  that  home  is 
peculiarly  the  sphere  of  woman,  and  civil  government 
that  of  man.  I  now  regard  the  home  as  the  joint  sphere 
of  man  and  womaii,  and  the  sphere  of  civil  government 
more  of  an  ojjen  question  as  between  the  tico.  It  is, 
however,  to  be  lamented  that  the  present  agitation  con- 
cerning the  rights  of  woman  is  so  much  a  matter  of 
'rights'  rather  than  of  'duties,'  as  the  reform  of  the 
latter  would  involve  the  former." 

If  our  instructors  in  moral  philosophy  will  only  base 
their  theory  of  ethics  as  broadly  as  this,  we  shall  no 
longer  need  to  advertise  ' '  Homes  Wanted ; ' '  for  the 
joint  efforts  of  men  and  women  will  soon  provide  them. 


THE   ORIGIN   OF  CIVILIZATION.  93 


XXIV. 

THE   OPvIGIX   OF   CIYILIZATIOX. 

XoTiiixG  throws  more  light  on  the  whole  historj^  of 
woman  than  the  first  illustration  in  Sir  John  Lubbock's 
''  Origin  of  Civilization."  A  3'oung  girl,  almost  naked, 
is  being  dragged  furiously  along  the  ground  by  a  party 
of  naked  savages,  armed  literally  to  the  teeth,  while 
those  of  another  band  grasp  her  l)y  the  arm,  and  almost 
tear  her  asunder  in  the  effort  to  hold  her  back.  These 
last  are  her  brothers  and  her  friends  ;  the  others  are  — ■ 
her  enemies?  As  3'ou  please  to  call  them.  They  are 
her  future  husband  and  his  kinsmen,  who  have  come 
to  aid  him  in  his  wooing. 

This  was  the  primitive  rite  of  marriage.  Vestiges 
of  it  still  remain  among  savage  nations.  And  all  the 
romance  and  grace  of  the  most  I-efined  modern  mar- 
riage —  the  orange-blossoms,  the  bridal  veil,  the  church 
service,  the  wedding-feast  —  these  are  only  the  "  bright 
consummate  flower"  reared  by  civilization  from  that 
rough  seed.  All  the  brutal  encounter  is  softened  into 
this.  Xothing  remains  of  the  barbarism  except  the 
one  word  ''  obe}^,"  and  even  that  is  going. 

Now,  to  say  that  a  thing  is  going,  is  to  say  that  it 
will  presently  be  gone.  To  say  that  any  thing  is 
changed,  is  to  say  that  it  is  to  change  further.  If  it 
never  has  been  altered,  perhaps  it  will  not  be  ;  but  a 


94  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

proved  alteration  of  an  inch  in  a  j^ear  opens  the  way 
to  an  indefinite  modification.  The  stud}^  of  the  gla- 
ciers, for  instance,  began  with  the  discoveiy  that  they 
had  moved  ;  and  from  that  moment  no  one  doubted  that 
the}'  were  moving  all  the  time.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
position  of  woman.  Once  open  3'our  e^'es  to  the  fact 
that  it  has  changed,  and  who  is  to  predict  where  the 
matter  shall  end?  It  is  sheer  folly  to  say,  "  Her  rela- 
tive position  will  always  be  what  it  has  been,"  when 
one  glance  at  Sir  John  Lubbock's  picture  shows  that 
there  is  no  fixed  "has  been,"  but  that  her  original 
position  was  long  since  altered  and  revised.  Those 
who  still  use  this  argument  are  like  those  who  laughed 
at  the  lines  of  stakes  which  Agassiz  planted  across  the 
Aar  glacier  in  1840.  But  the  stakes  settled  the  ques- 
tion, and  proved  the  motion.  Pero  si  mnove:  ''But  it 
moves." 

The  motion  once  proved,  the  whole  range  of  possible 
progress  is  before  us.  The  amazement  of  that  formerly 
"heathen  Chinee"  in  Boston,  the  other  da}',  when  he 
saw  a  woman  addressing  a  missionary  meeting ;  the 
astonishment  of  all  English  visitors  when  young  ladies 
hear  classes  in  geometry  and  Latin,  in  our  high  schools  ; 
the  surprise  of  foreigners  at  seeing  the  rough  throng  in 
the  Cooper  Institute  reading-room  submit  to  the  sway 
of  one  young  woman  with  a  crochet-needle  —  all  these 
simply  testify  to  the  fact  that  the  stakes  have  moved. 
That  they  have  yet  been  carried  half  way  to  the  end, 
who  knows  ?  AVhat  a  step  from  the  horrible  nuptials  of 
those  savage  days  to  the  poetic  marriage  of  Robert 
Browning  and  Elizabeth  Barrett  —  the  "Sonnets  from 
the  Portuguese  "  on  one  side,  the  "  One  Word  More  " 


THE   OBIGIN   OF  CIVILIZATION.  95 

on  the  other  I  But  who  can  say  that  the  whole  relation 
between  man  and  woman  reached  its  climax  there,  and 
that  where  the  past  has  brought  changes  so  vast  the 
future  is  to  add  nothing?  Who  knows  that,  when 
"  the  world's  great  bridals  come."  people  may  not  look 
back  with  pity,  even  on  this  era  of  the  Brownings? 
Probably  even  Elizabeth  Barrett  promised  to  obey ! 

At  any  rate,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  each  step  concedes 
the  probability  of  another.  Even  from  the  naked  bar- 
barian to  the  veiled  Oriental,  from  the  savage  hut  to 
the  carefully  enshrined  harem,  is  a  step  forward.  It 
is  another  step  in  the  spiral  line  of  progress  to  the 
unveiled  face  and  comparatively  free  movements  of  the 
modern  English  or  American  woman.  From  the  kitchen 
to  the  pul)lic  lecture-room,  from  that  to  the  lecture- 
platform,  and  from  that  again  to  the  ballot-box,  — 
these  are  far  slighter  steps  than  those  which  have 
already  lifted  the  savage  girl  of  Sir  John  Lubbock's 
picture  into  the  possession  of  the  alphabet  and  the 
dignit}^  of  a  home.  So  easy  are  these  future  changes 
beside  those  of  the  past,  that  to  doubt  their  possibility 
is  as  if  Agassiz,  after  tracing  j^ear  by  year  the  motion 
of  his  Alpine  glacier,  should  deny  its  power  to  move 
one  inch  farther  into  the  sunny  valley,  and  there  to 
melt  harmlessly  away. 


96  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   VrOMEN. 


XXV. 

THE   LOW-WATER   MARK. 

We  constantly  see  it  assumed,  in  arguments  against 
any  step  in  tlie  elevation  of  woman,  that  her  position 
is  a  thing  fixed  permanently  by  nature,  so  that  there 
can  be  in  it  no  great  or  essential  change.  Every  suc- 
cessive modification  is  resisted  as  '^  a  reform  against- 
nature  ;  "  and  this  argument  from  permanence  is  always 
that  appealing  most  strongly  to  conservative  minds. 
Let  us  see  how  the  facts  confirm  it. 

A  story  is  going  the  roimds  of  the  newspapers  in 
regard  to  a  Russian  peasant  and  his  wife.  For  some 
act  of  disobedience  the  peasant  took  the  law  into  his 
own  hands  ;  and  his  mode  of  discipline  was  to  tie  the 
poor  creature  naked  to  a  post  in  the  street,  and  to  call 
on  every  passer-by  to  strike  her  a  blow.  Not  satisfied 
with  this,  he  placed  her  on  the  ground,  and  tied  heavy 
weights  on  her  limbs  until  one  arm  was  broken.  When 
finally  released,  she  made  a  complaint  against  him  in 
court.  The  court  discharged  him  on  the  ground  that 
he  had  not  exceeded  the  legal  authority  of  a  husband. 
Encouraged  by  this,  he  caused  her  to  be  arrested  in 
return  ;  and  the  same  court  sentenced  her  to  another 
public  whipping  for  disobedience. 

No  authority  was  given  for  this  story  in  the  news- 
paper where   1   saw  it ;  but   it   certainly  did  not  first 


THE   LOW-WATER   MABK.  97 

appear  in  a  woman-suffrage  newspaper,  and  cannot 
therefore  be  a  manufaetured  "outrage."  I  use  it 
simply  to  illustrate  the  low- water  mark  at  which  the 
position  of  woman  may  rest,  in  the  largest  Christian 
nation  of  the  world.  All  the  refinements,  all  the  edu- 
cation, all  the  comparative  justice,  of  modern  society, 
have  been  gradually  upheaved  from  some  such  depth 
as  this.  When  the  gypsies  described  by  Leland  treat 
even  the  ground  trodden  upon  by  a  woman  as  impure, 
they  simply  illustrate  the  low  plane  from  which  all  the 
elevation  of  woman  has  begun.  All  these  things  show 
that  the  position  of  that  sex  in  society,  so  far  from 
being  a  thing  in  itself  permanent,  has  been  in  reality  the 
most  variable  of  all  factors  in  the  social  problem.  And 
this  inevitably  suggests  the  question.  Are  we  any  more 
sure  that  her  present  position  is  finall}-  and  absolutely 
fixed  than  were  those  who  observed  it  at  any  previous 
time  in  the  world's  history?  Granting  that  her  condi- 
tion was  once  at  low- water  mark,  who  is  authorized  to 
say  that  it  has  yet  reached  high-tide  ? 

It  is  very  possible  that  this  Russian  wife,  once 
scourged  back  to  submission,  ended  her  days  in  the 
conviction,  and  taught  to  her  daughters,  that  such  was 
a  woman's  rightful  place.  AVhen  an  American  woman 
of  to-day  saj's,  '-I  have  all  the  rights  I  want,"  is  she 
on  any  surer  ground  ?  Grant  that  the  difference  is  vast 
between  the  two.  How  do  we  know  that  even  the  later 
condition  is  final,  or  that  any  thing  is  final  but  entire 
equality  before  the  laws  ?  It  is  not  many  years  since 
William  Story  —  in  a  legal  work  inspired  and  revised  by 
his  father,  the  greatest  of  American  jurists  —  wrote  this 
indignant  protest  against  the  injustice  of  the  old  com- 
mon law  :  — 


98  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

"  In  respect  to  the  powers  and  rights  of  married  women, 
the  law  is  by  no  means  abreast  of  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Here 
are  seen  the  old  fossil  footprints  of  feudalism.  The  law  relat- 
ing to  woman  tends  to  make  every  family  a  barony  or  a  mon- 
archy., or  a  despotism,  of  which  the  husband  is  the  baron,  king, 
or  despot,  and  the  wife  the  dependent,  serf,  or  slave.  That 
this  is  not  always  the  fact,  is  not  due  to  the  law,  but  to  the  en- 
larged humanity  which  spurns  the  narrow  limits  of  its  rules. 
The  progress  of  civiUzation  has  changed  the  family  from  a 
barony  to  a  republic;  but  the  law  has  not  kept  pace  with  the 
advance  of  ideas,  manners,  and  oustoms.  And,  although  iDublic 
opinion  is  a  check  to  legal  rules  on  the  subject,  the  rules  are 
feudal  and  stern.  Yet  the  position  of  woman  throughout  his- 
tory serves  as  the  criterion  of  the  freedom  of  the  people  or  an 
age.  When  man  shall  despise  that  right  which  is  founded 
only  on  might,  woman  will  be  free  and  stand  on  an  equal  level 
with  him,  —  a  friend  and  not  a  dependent."  ^ 

We  know  that  the  law  is  greatly  changed  and  ame- 
liorated in  many  places  since  Story  wrote  this  state- 
ment ;  but  we  also  know  how  almost  ev^ery  one  of  these 
changes  was  resisted :  and  who  is  authorized  to  say 
that  the  final  and  equitable  fulfilment  is  yet  reached  ? 

1  Story's  Treatise  on  the  Law  of  Contracts  not  under  Seal,  p.  89,  §  84. 


"  OBEY."  99 


XXYL 
"  OBEY.^ 

After  witnessing  the  marriage  ceremony  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church,  the  other  day,  I  walked  down  the  aisle 
with  the  young  rector  who  had  officiated.  It  was  nat- 
ural to  speak  of  the  beauty  of  the  Church  service  on 
an  occasion  like  that ;  but,  after  doing  this,  I  felt 
compelled  to  protest  against  the  unrighteous  pledge  to 
ol)e3\  ''I  hope,"  I  said,  ''to  live  to  see  that  word 
expunged  from  the  Episcopal  service,  as  it  has  been 
from  that  of  the  Methodists." 

' '  Why  ?  "  he  asked.  "Is  it  because  3'ou  know  that 
the}^  will  not  obe}^  whatever  their  promise?  " 

'•  Because  they  ought  not,"  I  said. 

"Well,"  said  he,  after  a  few  moments'  reflection, 
and  looking  up  frankly,  "I  do  not  think  they  ought !  " 

Here  was  a  young  clergyman  of  great  earnestness 
and  self-devotion,  who  included  it  among  the  sacred 
duties  of  his  life  to  impose  upon  ignorant  young  girls 
a  solemn  obligation,  which  he  yet  thought  they  ought 
not  to  incur,  and  did  not  believe  that  they  would  keep. 
There  could  hardly  be  a  better  illustration  of  the  con- 
fusion in  the  public  mind,  or  the  manner  in  which  "  the 
subjection  of  woman"  is  being  outgrown,  or  the  sub- 
tile way  in  which  this  subjection  has  been  interwoven 
with  sacred  ties,  and  baptized  "  duty." 


100         COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   W02IEN. 

The  advocates  of  woman  suffrage  are  constantly 
reproved  for  using  the  terms  "subjection,"  "oppres- 
sion," and  "  slavery,"  as  applied  to  woman.  The}^ 
simply  commit  the  same  sin  as  that  committed  by  the 
original  abolitionists.  They  are  "as  harsh  as  truth, 
as  uncompromising  as  justice."  Of  course  the}^  talk 
about  oppression  and  emancipation.  It  is  the  word 
obey  that  constitutes  the  one,  and  shows  the  need  of 
the  other.  Whoever  is  pledged  to  obey  is  technically 
and  literally  a  slave,  no  matter  how  many  roses  sur- 
round the  chains.  All  the  more  so  if  the  slavery  is 
self-imposed,  and  surrounded  by  all  the  prescriptions 
of  religion.  Make  the  marriage-tie  as  close  as  Church 
or  State  can  make  it ;  but  let  it  be  equal,  impartial. 
That  it  may  be  so,  tlie  word  obey  must  be  abandoned 
or  made  reciprocal.  Where  invariable  obedience  is 
promised,  equality  is  gone. 

That  there  may  be  no  doubt  about  the  meaning  of 
this  word  in  the  marriage-covenant,  the  usages  of  na- 
tions often  add  symbolic  explanations.  These  are  gen- 
erally simple  and  brutal  enough  to  be  understood.  The 
Hebrew  ceremony,  when  the  bridegroom  took  off  his 
slipper  and  struck  the  bride  on  the  neck  as  she  crossed 
his  threshold,  was  unmistakable.  As  my  black  ser- 
geant said,  when  a  white  prisoner  questioned  his  au- 
thority, and  he  pointed  to  the  chevrons  on  his  sleeve, 
"  Dat  mean  guv'ment."  All  these  forms  mean  simply 
government  also.  The  ceremony  of  the  slipper  has 
now  no  recognition,  except  when  people  fling  an  old 
shoe  after  the  bride,  which  is  held  by  antiquarians  to 
be  the  same  observance.  But  it  is  all  preserved  and 
concentrated  into  a  single  word,  when  the  bride  prom- 
ises to  obey. 


"  OBEY.''  101 

The  deepest  wretchedness  that  has  ever  been  put 
into  human  language,  or  that  has  exceeded  it,  has  grown 
out  of  that  pledge.  There  is  no  misery  on  earth  like 
that  of  a  pure  and  refined  woman  who  finds  herself 
owned,  body  and  soul,  by  a  drunken,  licentious,  brutal 
man.  The  very  fact  that  she  is  held  to  obedience  by 
a  spiritual  tie  makes  it  worse.  Chattel-slavery  was  not 
so  bad ;  for,  though  the  master  might  pervert  religion 
for  his  own  satisfaction,  he  could  not  impose  upon  the 
slave.  Never  yet  did  I  see  a  negro  slave  who  thought 
it  a  duty  to  obey  his  master ;  and  therefore  there  was 
always  some  dream  of  release.  But  who  has  not 
heard  of  some  delicate  and  refined  woman,  one  day  of 
whose  torture  was  equivalent  to  years  of  that  possible 
to  an  obtuser  frame,  —  who  had  the  door  of  escape 
ready  at  hand  for  years,  and  yet  died  a  lingering  death 
rather  than  pass  through  it ;  and  this  because  she  had 
promised  to  obey ! 

It  is  said  of  one  of  the  most  gifted  women  who  ever 
trod  American  soil,  —  she  being  of  English  birth, — 
that,  before  she  obtained  the  divorce  which  separated 
her  from  her  profligate  husband,  she  once  went  for  coun- 
sel to  the  wife  of  her  pastor.  She  unrolled  before  her 
the  long  catalogue  of  merciless  outrages  to  which  she  had 
been  subject,  endangering  finally  her  health,  her  life, 
and  that  of  her  children  born  and  to  be  born.  "When 
she  turned  at  last  for  advice  to  her  confessor,  with  the 
agonized  inquiry.  '-What  is  it  my  duty  to  do?"  — 
''Do?"  said  the  stern  adviser:  "Lie  down  on  the 
floor,  and  let  your  husband  trample  on  you  if  he  will. 
That  is  a  woman's  duty." 

The  woman  who  gave  this  advice  was  not  uaturall}' 


102  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

inhuman  nor  heartless  :  she  had  shnply  been  trained  in 
the  school  of  obedience.  The  Jesuit  doctrine,  that  a 
priest  should  be  as  a  corpse,  perinde  ac  cadaver.,  in  the 
hands  of  a  superior  priest,  is  not  worse.  Woman  has 
no  right  to  delegate,  nor  man  to  assume,  a  responsibil- 
ity so  awful.  Just  in  proportion  as  it  is  consistently 
carried  out,  it  trains  men  from  boyhood  into  self-indul- 
gent tyrants ;  and,  while  some  women  are  transformed 
by  it  to  saints,  others  are  crushed  into  deceitful  slaves. 
That  this  was  the  result  of  chattel-slavery,  this  nation 
has  at  length  learned.  We  learn  more  slowly  the  pro- 
founder  and  more  subtile  moral  evil  that  follows  from 
the  unrighteous  promise  to  obey. 


W03IAJV  ly   THE  CHRYSALIS. 


XXVII. 

WOMAN  IN   THE   CHRYSALIS. 

TYhex  the  bride  receives  the  riug  upon  her  finger, 
and  utters  —  if  she  utters  it  —  the  unnatural  promise 
to  obey,  she  fancies  a  poetic  beauty  in  the  rite.  Turn- 
ing of  her  own  free  will  from  her  maiden  liberty,  she 
voluntarily  takes  the  yoke  of  service  upon  her.  This 
is  her  view  ;  but  is  this  the  historic  fact  in  regard  to 
marriage?  Not  at  all.  The  pledge  of  obedience  — 
the  whole  theory  of  inequality  in  marriage  —  is  simply 
what  is  left  to  us  of  a  former  state  of  society,  in  which 
every  woman,  old  or  young,  must  obe}"  somebody. 
The  state  of  tutelage,  implied  in  such  a  marriage,  is 
merely  what  is  left  of  the  old  theor}^  of  the  "  Perpetual 
Tutelage  of  Women,"  under  the  Roman  law. 

Roman  law,  from  which  our  civil  law  is  derived, 
has  its  foundation  evidently  in  patriarchal  tradition. 
It  recognized  at  first  the  family  onl}^,  and  that  family 
was  held  together  by  parental  power  {ixitria  potes- 
tas).  If  the  father  died,  his  powers  passed  to  the  son 
or  grandson,  as  the  possible  head  of  a  new  family ; 
but  these  powers  never  could  pass  to  a  woman,  and 
every  woman,  of  whatever  age,  must  be  under  some- 
body's legal  control.  Her  father  dying,  she  was  still 
subject  through  life  to  her  nearest  male  relations,  or 
to  her  father's  nominees,  as  her  guardians.     She  was 


104  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

under  perpetual  guardianship,  both  as  to  person  or 
property.  No  years,  no  experience,  could  make  her 
any  thing  but  a  child  before  the  law. 

In  Oriental  countries  the  system  was  still  more  com- 
plete. "A  man,"  says  the  Gentoo  Code  of  Laws, 
"  must  keep  his  wife  so  much  in  subjection  that  she  by 
no  means  be  mistress  of  her  own  action.  If  the  wife 
have  her  own  free  will,  notwithstanding  she  be  of  a 
superior  caste,  she  will  behave  amiss."  But  this  au- 
thority, which  still  exists  in  India,  is  not  merely  con- 
jugal. The  husband  exerts  it  simply  as  being  the 
wife's  legal  guardian.  If  the  woman  be  unmarried  or 
a  widow,  she  must  be  as  rigorously  held  under  some 
other  guardianship.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  a 
woman  in  India  to  be  the  ward  of  her  own  sou.  Lu- 
cretia  Mott  or  Florence  Nio-htino-ale  would  there  be  in 
personal  subjection  to  somebody.  Any  man  of  legal 
age  would  be  recognized  as  a  fit  custodian  for  them, 
but  there  must  be  a  man. 

With  some  variation  of  details  at  different  periods, 
the  same  system  prevailed  essentially  at  Rome,  down 
to  the  time  when  Rome  became  Christian.  Those  who 
wish  for  particulars  will  find  them  in  an  admirable 
chapter  (the  fifth)  of  Maine's  "Ancient  Law."  At 
one  time  the  husband  was  held  to  possess  the  patria 
2Jotestas,  or  parental  power,  in  its  full  force.  By  law 
"  the  woman  passed  in  manum  viri^  that  is,  she  became 
the  daughter  of  her  husband."  All  she  had  became 
his,  and  after  his  death  she  was  retained  in  the  same 
strict  tutelage  by  any  guardians  his  will  might  appoint. 
Afterwards,  to  soften  this  rigid  bond,  the  woman  was 
regarded  in  law  as  being  temporarily  deposited  by  her 


WOMAN  IN   THE   CHRYSALIS.  105 

family  with  her  husband  ;  the  family  appointed  guard- 
ians over  her :  and  thus,  between  the  two  tj^ranuies, 
she  won  a  sort  of  independence.  Then  came  Chris- 
tianity, and  swept  away  the  parental  authority  for 
married  women,  concentrating  all  upon  the  husband. 
Hence  our  legislation  bears  the  mark  of  a  double  origin, 
and  woman  is  half  recognized  as  an  equal  and  half  as 
a  slave. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember,  therefore,  that  all  the 
relation  of  subjection  in  marriage  is  merely  the  resi- 
due of  an  unnatural  system,  of  which  all  else  is  long 
since  outgrown.  It  would  have  seemed  to  an  ancient 
Roman  a  matter  of  course  that  a  woman  should,  all 
her  life  long,  obey  the  guardians  set  over  her  person. 
It  still  seems  to  many  people  a  matter  of  course  ttat 
she  should  obey  her  husband.  To  others  among  us,  on 
the  contrary,  both  these  theories  of  obedience  seem  bar- 
barous, and  the  one  is  merely  a  relic  of  the  other. 

AVe  cannot  disregard  the  history  of  the  Theory  of 
Tutelage.  If  we  could  believe  that  a  chrysalis  is 
alwaj's  a  chrysalis,  and  a  butterfly  always  a  butterfly, 
we  could  easily  leave  each  to  its  appropriate  sphere  ; 
but  when  we  see  the  chrysalis  open,  and  the  butterfly 
come  half  out  of  it,  we  know  that  sooner  or  later  it 
must  spread  wings,  and  fly.  The  theory  of  tutelage  is 
the  chrysalis.  Woman  is  the  butterfly.  Sooner  or 
later  she  will  be  wholly  out. 


106  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 


XXVIII. 
TWO   AXD   TWO. 

A  YOUNG  man  of  very  good  brains  was  telling  me, 
the  other  day,  his  dreams  of  his  future  wife.  Ratlliug 
on,  more  in  joke  than  in  earnest,  he  said,  "She  must 
be  perfectly  ignorant,  and  a  bigot :  she  must  know 
nothing,  and  believe  every  thing.  I  should  wish  to  have 
her  call  to  me  from  the  adjoining  room,  '  My  dear, 
what  do  two  and  two  make  ? '  " 

It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  his  demand  would  be  so 
very  hard  to  fill,  since  bigotry  and  ignorance  are  to  be 
had  almost  anywhere  for  the  asking  ;  and,  as  for  two 
and  two,  I  should  say  that  it  had  always  been  the  habit 
of  women  to  ask  that  question  of  some  man,  and  to  rest 
easily  satisfied  with  the  answer.  They  have  generally 
called,  as  my  friend  wished,  from  some  otheiiroom,  say- 
ing, "  My  dear,  what  do  two  and  two  make?  "  and  the 
husband  or  father  or  brother  has  answered  and  said, 
"  My  dear,  they  make  four  for  a  man,  and  three  for  a 
woman.  " 

At  an}^  given  period  in  the  history  of  woman,  she 
has  adopted  man's  whim  as  the  measure  of  her  rights  ; 
has  claimed  nothing  ;  has  sweetl}^  accepted  any  thing  : 
the  law  of  two-and-two  itself  should  be  at  his  discre- 
tion. At  any  given  moment,  so  well  was  his  interprc^- 
tation  received,  that  it  stood  for  absolute   right.     In 


TWO  AND    TWO,  107 

Rome  a  woman,  married  or  single,  could  not  testify  in 
court ;  in  the  middle  ages,  and  down  to  quite  modern 
times,  she  could  not  hold  real  estate ;  ten  years  ago 
she  could  not,  in  New  England,  obtain  a  collegiate 
education  ;  even  now  she  cannot  vote. 

The  first  principles  of  republican  government  are  sc 
rehearsed  and  re-rehearsed,  that  one  would  think  they 
must  become  ''as  plain  as  that  two  and  two  make 
four."  But  we  find  throughout,  that,  as  Emerson  said 
of  another  class  of  reasouers,  '*  Their  two  is  not  the 
real  two  ;  their  four  is  not  the  real  four. ' '  We  find 
different  numerals  and  diverse  arithmetical  rules  for 
the  two  sexes  ;  as,  in  some  Oriental  countries,  men  and 
women  speak  different  dialects  of  the  same  language. 

In  novels  the  hero  often  begins  by  dreaming,  like 
my  friend,  of  an  ideal  wife,  who  shall  be  ignorant  of 
eveiy  thing,  and  have  only  brains  enough  to  be  bigot- 
ed. Instead  of  sighing,  like  Falstaff,  "  Oh  for  a  fine 
young  thief,  of  the  age  of  two  and  twenty  or  there- 
abouts ! ' '  the  hero  sighs  for  a  fine  young  idiot  of  simi- 
lar age.  When  the  hero  is  successful  in  his  search  and 
wooing,  the  novelist  sometimes  mercifully  removes  the 
young  woman  early,  like  David  Copperfield's  Dora,  she 
bequeathing  the  bereaved  husband,  on  her  death-bed, 
to  a  woman  of  sense.  In  real  life  these  convenient 
interruptions  do  not  commonly  occur,  and  the  foolish 
youth  regrets  through  many  years  that  he  did  not  select 
an  Agnes  instead. 

The  acute  observer  Stendhal  says,  — 

"  In  Paris,  the  highest  praise  for  a  marriageable  girl  is  to 
say,  '  She  has  great  sweetness  of  character  and  the  disposition 
of  a  lamb.'     I^othing  produces  more  impression  on  fools  who 


108  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

are  looldng  out  for  wives.  I  think  I  see  the  interesting  couple, 
two  5'ears  after,  breakfasting  together  on  a  dull  day,  with  three 
tall  lackeys  waiting  upon  them!" 

AdcI  he  adds,  still  speaking  in  the  interest  of  men,  — 

"  Most  men  have  a  period  in  their  career  when  they  might 
do  something  great,  a  period  when  nothing  seems  impossible. 
The  ignorance  of  women  spoils  for  the  human  race  this  mag- 
nificent opportunity;  and  love,  at  the  utmost,  in  these  days, 
only  inspires  a  young  man  to  learn  to  ride  well,  or  to  make  a 
judicious  selection  of  a  tailor."  ^ 

Society,  however,  discovers  by  degrees  that  there  are 
conveniences  in  every  woman's  knowing  the  four  rules 
of  arithmetic  for  herself.  Two  and  two  come  to  the 
same  amount  on  a  butcher's  bill,  whether  the  order  be 
given  by  a  man  or  a  woman  ;  and  it  is  the  same  in 
all  affairs  or  investments,  financial  or  moral.  We  shall 
one  day  learn  that  with  laws,  customs,  and  public 
affairs  it  is  even  so.  Once  get  it  rooted  in  a  woman's 
mind,  that,  for  her,  two  and  two  make  three  only,  and 
sooner  or  later  the  accounts  of  the-  whole  human  race 
fail  to  balance. 

1  De  L'Amour,  par  de  Stendhal  (Henri  Beyle).  Paris,  1868  [written  in 
1822],  pp.  182,  198. 


A   MODEL   HOUSEHOLD.  108 


XXIX. 

A  MODEL   HOUSEHOLD. 

There  is  an  African  bird  called  the  bornbill,  whose 
habits  are  in  some  respects  a  model.  The  female  builds 
her  nest  in  a  hollow  tree,  lays  her  eggs,  and  broods 
on  them.  So  far,  so  good.  Then  the  male  feels  that 
he  must  also  contribute  some  service  ;  so  he  walls  up 
the  hole  closely,  giving  only  room  for  the  point  of  the 
female's  bill  to  protrude.  Lentil  the  eggs  are  hatched, 
she  is  thenceforth  confined  to  her  nest,  and  is  in  the 
mean  time  fed  assiduously  by  her  mate,  who  devotes 
himself  entirely  to  this  object.  Dr.  Livingstone  has 
seen  these  nests  in  Africa,  Layard  and  others  in  Asia, 
and  Wallace  in  Sumatra. 

Personally  I  have  never  seen  a  hornbill's  nest.  The 
nearest  approach  I  ever  made  to  it  was  when  in  Fayal 
I  used  to  pass  near  a  gloomy  mansion,  of  which  the 
front  windows  were  walled  up,  and  only  one  high  win- 
dow was  visible  in  the  rear,  beyond  the  reach  of  eyes 
from  any  neighboring  house.  In  tb^'s  cheerful  abode, 
I  was  assured,  a  Portuguese  lady  had  been  for  many 
years  confined  by  her  jealous  husband.  It  was  long 
since  any  neighbor  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  her,  but  it 
was  supposed  that  she  was  alive.  There  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  her  husband  fed  her  well.  It  was  simply 
a  case  of  human  hornbill,  with  the  imprisonment  made 
perpetual. 


110  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

I  have  more  thau  onee  asked  law3^ers  whether,  in 
communities  where  the  old  common  law  prevailed,  there 
was  any  thing  to  prevent  such  an  imprisonment  of  a 
married  woman ;  and  they  have  always  answered, 
"Nothing  but  public  opinion."  Where  the  husband 
has  the  legal  custody  of  the  wife's  person,  no  habeas 
corpus  can  avail  against  him.  The  hornbill  household 
is  based  on  a  strict  application  of  the  old  common  law. 
A  Hindoo  household  was  a  hornbill  household:  "a 
woman,  of  whatsoever  age,  should  never  be  mistress  of 
her  own  actions,"  said  the  code  of  Menu.  An  Athe- 
nian household  was  a  hornbill' s  nest,  and  great  was  the 
outcry  when  some  Aspasia  broke  out  of  it.  When  Mrs. 
Sherman  petitions  Congress  against  the  emancipation 
of  woman,  we  seem  to  hear  the  twittering  of  the  horn- 
bill mother,  imploring  to  be  left  inside. 

Under  some  forms,  the  hornbill  theory  becomes  re- 
spectable. There  are  many  peaceful  families,  innocent 
though  torpid,  where  the  only  dream  of  existence  is  to 
have  plenty  of  quiet,  plent}^  of  food,  and  plenty  of 
well-fed  children.  For  them  this  African  household  is 
a  sufficient  model.  The  wife  is  "  a  home  body."  The 
husband  is  "  a  good  provider. ' '  These  are  honest  peo- 
ple, and  have  a  right  to  speak.  The  hornbill  theory  is 
only  dishonest  when  it  comes  —  as  it  often  comes  — 
from  women  who  lead  the  life,  not  of  good  stay-at- 
home  fowls,  but  of  paroquets  and  humming-birds,  — 
who  sorrowfully  bemoan  the  active  habits  of  enlight- 
ened women,  whil'e  they  themselves 

*'Bear  about  the  mockery  of  woe 
To  midnight  dances  and  the  public  show." 


A   MODEL    HOUSEHOLD.  Ill 

It  is  from  these  women,  in  Washington,  Xew  York, 
and  elsewhere,  that  the  loudest  appeal  for  the  horn  bill 
standard  of  domesticity  proceeds.  Put  them  to  the 
test,  and  give  them  their  chicken-salad  and  champagne 
through  a  hole  in  the  wall  only,  and  see  how  they  like  it. 
But  even  the  most  honest  and  peaceful  conservatives 
will  one  day  admit  that  the  hornbill  is  not  the  highest 
model.  Plato  thought  that  ' '  the  soul  of  our  grandame 
might  haply  inhabit  the  body  of  a  bird  ;  "  but  Nature 
has  kindly  provided  various  types  of  bird-households 
to  suit  all  varieties  of  taste.  The  bright  orioles,  filling 
the  summer  boughs  with  color  and  with  song,  are  as 
truly  domestic  in  the  freedom  of  their  airy  nest  as  the 
poor  hornbills  who  ignorantly  make  home  into  a  dun- 
geon. And  certainly  each  new  generation  of  orioles, 
spreading  their  free  wings  from  that  pendent  cradle, 
are  a  happier  illustration  of  judicious  nurture  than  are 
the  uncouth  little  offspring  of  the  hornbills,  whom 
Wallace  describes  as  "so  flabby  and  semi-transparent 
as  to  resemble  a  bladder  of  jelly,  furnished  with  head, 
legs,  and  rudimentary  wings,  but  with  not  a  sign  of  a 
feather,  except  a  few  lines  of  points  indicating  where 
they  would  come." 


112  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XXX. 

A  SAFEGUARD   FOR  THE   FAMILY. 

Many  'German-Americans  are  warm  friends  of  wo- 
man suffrage  ;  but  the  editors  of  "  Puck,"  it  seems,  are 
not.  In  a  late  number  of  that  comic  journal,  it  had  an 
unfavorable  cartoon  on  this  reform  ;  and  in  a  following 
number,  —  the  number,  b}^  the  way,  which  contains  that 
amusing  illustration  of  the  vast  seaside  hotels  of  the 
future,  with  the  cheering  announcement,  "Only  one 
mile  to  the  barber's  shop,"  and  "  Take  the  cars  to  the 
dining-room,"  —  a  lady  comes  to  the  rescue,  and  brave- 
ly defends  woman  suffrage.  It  seems  that  the  original 
cartoon  depicted  in  the  corner  a  pretty  family  scene, 
representing  father,  mother,  and  children  seated  hap- 
pily together,  with  the  melancholy  motto,  "Never- 
more, nevermore  !  "  And  when  the  correspondent,  Mrs. 
Blake,  very  naturally  asks  what  this  touching  picture 
has  to  do  with  woman  suffrage,  Puck  sa^^s,  "If  the 
husband  in  our  '  pretty  family  scene  '  should  propose  to 
vote  for  the  candidate  who  was  obnoxious  to  his  wife, 
would  this  '  prett}^  famih^  scene  '  continue  to  be  a  do- 
mestic paradise,  or  would  it  remind  the  spectator  of  the 
region  in  which  Dante  spent  his  •  fortnight  off  '  ?  " 

It  is  beautiful  to  see  how  much  anxiet}'  there  is  to 
preserve  the  family.  Every  step  in  the  modification  of 
the  old  common  law,  whereby  the  wife  was,   in  Baron 


A    SAFEGUARD   FOE    THE  FAMILY.        113 

Alderson's  phrase,  "  the  servant  of  her  husband,"  was 
resisted  as  tending  to  endanger  the  family.  That  the 
wife  should  control  her  own  earnings,  so  that  her  hus- 
band should  not  have  the  right  to  collect  them  in  order 
to  pay  his  gambling-debts,  was  declared  by  English 
advocates,  in  the  celebrated  case  of  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Norton,  the  poetess,  to  imperil  all  the  future  peace  of 
British  households.  Even  the  liberal-minded  "  Punch," 
about  the  time  Girton  College  was  founded  in  England, 
expressed  grave  doubts  whether  the  harmony  of  wedded 
unions  would  not  receive  a  blow,  from  the  time  when 
wives  should  be  lial)le  to  know  more  Greek  than  their 
husbands.  Yet  the  marriage  relation  has  withstood 
these  innovations.  It  has  not  been  impaired,  either 
by  separate  rights,  private  earnings,  or  independent 
Greek :  can  it  be  possible  that  a  little  voting  will  over- 
throw it  ? 

The  very  ground  on  which  woman  suffrage  is  opposed 
by  its  enemies  might  assuage  these  fears.  If,  as  we 
are  told,  women  will  not  take  the  pains  to  vote  except 
upon  the  strongest  inducements,  who  has  so  good  an 
opportunity  as  the  husband  to  bring  those  inducements 
to  bear?  and,  if  so,  what  is  the  separation?  Or  if.  as 
we  are  told,  women  will  merely  reflect  their  husbands' 
political  opinions,  why  should  they  dispute  about  them? 
The  mere  suggestion  of  a  difference  deep  enough  to 
quarrel  for,  implies  a  real  difference  of  convictions  or 
interests,  and  indicates  that  there  ought  to  be  an  in- 
dependent representation  of  each  ;  unless  we  fall  back, 
once  for  all,  on  the  common-law  tradition  that  man  and 
wife  are  one,  and  that  one  is  the  husband.  Either  the 
antagonisms  whieli  occur  in  politics  are  comparatively 


114  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

superficial,  in  which  case  they  would  clo  no  harm  ;  or 
else  the}^  touch  matters  of  real  interest  and  principle, 
in  which  case  every  human  being  has  a  right  to  inde- 
pendent expression,  even  at  a  good  deal  of  risk.  In 
either  case,  the  objection  falls  to  the  ground. 

We  have  fortunately  a  means  of  testing,  with  some 
fairness  of  estimate,  the  probable  amount  of  this  peril. 
It  is  generally  admitted,  —  and  certainly  no  German- 
American  will  deny,  —  that  the  most  fruitful  sources  of 
hostility  and  war  in  all  times  have  been  religious,  not 
political.  All  merel}^  political  antagonism,  certainly 
all  which  is  possible  in  a  republic,  fades  into  insignifi- 
cance before  this  more  powerful  dividing  influence.  Yet 
we  leave  all  this  great  explosive  force  in  unimpeded 
operation,  —  at  any  moment  it  may  be  set  in  action, 
in  any  one  of  those  "  pretty  family  scenes  "  which 
"Puck"  depicts, — while  we  are  solemnly  warned 
against  admitting  the  comparatively  mild  peril  of  a 
political  difference  !  It  is  like  cautioning  a  manufac- 
turer of  d^^namite  against  the  danger  of  meddling  with 
mere  edge-tools.  Even  with  all  the  intensity  of  feeling 
on  religious  matters,  few  families  are  seriously  divided 
by  them  ;  and  the  influence  of  political  differences  would 
be  still  more  insignificant. 

The  simple  fact  is,  that  there  is  no  better  basis  for 
union  than  mutual  respect  for  each  other's  opinions  ; 
and  this  can  never  be  obtained  without  an  intelligent 
independence.  "I  would  rather  have  a  thorn  in  my 
side  than  an  echo,"  said  Emerson  of  friendship;  and 
the  same  is  true  of  married  life.  It  is  the  echoes,  the 
nonentities,  of  whom  men  grow  tired  ;  it  is  the  women 
with  some  flavor  of  individuality  who  keep  the  hearts 


A    SAFEGUARD   FOR    THE  FAMILY.        115 

of  their  husbands.  This  is  only  applying  in  a  higher 
sense  what  Shakspeare's  Cleopatra  saw.  When  her 
handmaidens  are  questioning  how  to  hold  a  lover,  and 
one  says, — 

"  Give  way  to  him  in  all:  cross  him  in  nothing,"  — 

Cleopatra,  from  the  depth  of  an  unequalled  experience, 
retorts,  — 

"  Thou  speakest  like  a  fool:  the  way  to  lose  him!  " 

And  what  "  the  serpent  of  old  Nile  "  said,  the  wives  of 
the  future,  who  are  to  he  wise  as  serpents  and  harmless 
as  doves,  may  well  ponder.  It  takes  two  things  differ- 
ent to  maKe  a  union  ;  and  part  of  that  difference  may 
as  well  lie  m  matters  political  as  anywhere  else. 


116  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XXXI. 

WOMEN  AS  ECONOMISTS. 

An  able  lawyer  of  Boston,  arguing  the  other  day 
before  a  legislative  committee  in  favor  of  giving  to  the 
city  council  a  check  upon  the  expenditures  of  the  school 
committee,  gave  as  one  reason  that  this  body  would 
probably  include  more  women  henceforward,  and  that 
women  were  ordinaril}^  more  lavish  than  men  in  their 
use  of  money.  The  truth  of  this  assumption  was  ques- 
tioned at  the  time  ;  and,  the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more 
contrary  it  is  to  my  whole  experience.  I  should  say  that 
women,  from  the  ver}^  habit  of  their  lives,  are  led  to  be 
more  particular  about  details,  and  more  careful  as  to 
small  economies.  The  very  fact  that  they  handle  less 
money  tends  to  this.  When  they  are  told  to  spend 
money,  as  they  often  are  by  loving  or  ambitious  hus- 
bands, they  no  doubt  do  it  freely  :  they  have  naturally 
more  taste  than  men,  and  quite  as  much  love  of  luxury. 
In  some  instances  in  this  country  they  spend  money 
recklessly  and  wickedly,  like  the  heroines  of  French 
novels  ;  but  as,  even  in  brilliant  Paris,  the  women  of 
the  middle  classes  are  notoriously^  better  managers  than 
the  men,  so  we  often  see,  in  our  scheming  America,  the 
same  relative  superiority.  Often  have  I  heard  young 
men  say,  "I  never  knew  how  to  economize  until  after 
ni}^  marriage;"   and  who  has  not  seen  multitudes  of 


WOJIEy  AS  ECONOMISTS.  117 

instances  where  women  accustomed  to  luxury  have  ac- 
cepted poverty  without  a  murmur  for  the  sake  of  those 
whom  they  loved  ? 

I  remember  a  young  girl,  accustomed  to  the  gayest 
society  of  New  York,  who  engaged  herself  to  a  young 
naval  officer,  against  the  advice  of  the  friends  of  both. 
One  of  her  near  relatives  said  to  me,  "Of  all  the 
young  girls  I  have  ever  known,  she  is  the  least  fitted 
for  a  poor  man's  wife."  Yet  from  the  very  mom.ent  of 
her  marriage  she  brought  their  joint  expenses  within 
his  scanty  pay,  and  even  saved  a  little  money  from  it. 
Everybody  knows  such  instances.  We  hear  men  de- 
nounce the  extravagance  of  women,  while  those  very 
men  spend  on  wine  and  cigars,  on  clubs  and  horses, 
twice  what  their  wives  spend  on  their  toilet.  If  the 
wives  are  economical,  the  husbands  perhaps  urge  them 
on  to  greater  lavishness.  "  Why  do  you  not  dress 
like  Mrs.  So-and-so?  "  —  "  I  can't  afford  it." —  "  But 
I  can  afford  it;"  and  then,  when  the  bills  come  in, 
the  talk  of  extravagance  recommences.  At  one  time 
in  Newport  that  lady  among  the  summer  visitors  who 
was  reported  to  be  Worth's  best  customer  was  also  well 
known  to  be  quite  indifferent  to  society,  and  to  go  into 
it  mainly  to  please  her  husband,  whose  social  ambition 
was  notorious. 

It  has  often  happened  to  me  to  serve  in  organizations 
where  both  sexes  were  represented,  and  where  expen- 
ditures were  to  be  made  for  business  or  pleasure.  In 
these  I  have  found,  as  a  rule,  that  the  women  were 
more  careful,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  more  timid,  than 
the  men,  less  willing  to  risk  any  thing :  the  bolder 
financial  experiments  came  from  the  men,  as  one  might 


118         COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

expect.  In  talking  the  other  day  with  the  secretary 
of  an  important  educational  enterprise,  conducted  by 
women,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  was  cramped  for 
money,  though  large  subscriptions  were  said  to  have 
been  made  to  it.  On  inquiry  it  appeared  that  these 
ladies,  having  pledged  themselves  for  four  years,  had 
divided  the  amount  received  into  four  parts,  and  were 
resolutely  limiting  themselves,  for  the  first  year,  to  one 
quarter  part  of  what  had  been  subscribed.  No  board 
of  men  would  have  done  so.  Any  board  of  men  would 
have  allowed  far  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  sum  for 
the  first  3^ear's  expenditures,  justly  reasoning  that  if 
the  enterprise  began  well  it  would  command  public 
confidence,  and  bring  in  additional  subscriptions  as 
time  went  on.  I  would  appeal  to  any  one  whose 
experience  has  been  in  joint  associations  of  men  and 
women,  whether  this  is  not  a  fair  statement  of  the 
difference  between  their  ways  of  working.  It  does  not 
prove  that  women  are  more  honest  than  men,  but  that 
their  education  or  their  nature  makes  them  more  cau- 
tious in  expenditure. 

The  habits  of  society  make  the  dress  of  a  fashionable 
woman  far  more  expensive  than  that  of  a  man  of  fash- 
ion. Formerly  it  was  not  so  ;  and,  so  long  as  it  was 
not  so,  the  extravagance  of  men  in  this  respect  quite 
equalled  that  of  women.  It  now  takes  other  forms, 
but  the  habit  is  the  same.  There  is  not  a  club-house 
in  Boston  furnished  with  such  absence  of  luxury  as  the 
Women's  Club  rooms  on  Park  Street :  the  contrast  was 
at  first  so  great  as  to  seem  almost  absurd.  The  waiters 
at  any  fashionable  restaurant  will  tell  you  that  what  is 
a  cheap  dinner  for  a  man  would  be  a  dear  dinner  for  a 


WOMEX  AS   ECOXOMISTS.  119 

woman.  Yet  after  all,  the  test  is  not  in  any  particular 
class  of  expenditures,  but  in  the  husiness-like  habit. 
Men  are  of  course  more  business-like  in  large  coml:)ina- 
tions,  for  they  are  more  used  to  them  ;  but  for  the 
small  details  of  daily  economy  women  are  more  watch- 
ful. The  cases  where  women  ruin  their  husbands  by 
extravagance  are  exceptional.  As  a  rule,  the  men  are 
the  bread-winners  ;  but  the  careful  saving  and  man- 
aginof  and  contrivino-  come  from  the  women. 


120  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   W03IEN. 


XXXII. 

GREATER  IXCLUDES  LESS. 

I  WAS  ODce  at  a  little  musical  party  in  New  York, 
where  several  accomplished  amateur  singers  were  pres- 
ent, and  with  them  the  eminent  professional,  Miss 
Adelaide  Phillips.  The  amatem'S  were  first  called  on. 
Each  chose  some  difficult  operatic  passage,  and  sang  her 
best.  When  it  came  to  the  great  opera-singer's  turn, 
instead  of  exhibiting  her  ability  to  eclipse  those  rivals  on 
her  own  ground,  she  simply  seated  herself  at  the  piano, 
and  sang  "  Kathleen  Mavourneen  "  with  such  thrilling 
sweetness,  that  the  young  Irish  girl  who  was  setting 
the  supper-table  in  the  next  room  forgot  all  her  plates 
and  teaspoons,  threw  herself  into  a  chair,  put  her  apron 
over  her  face,  and  sobbed  as  if  her  heart  would  break. 
All  the  training  of  Adelaide  Phillips  —  her  magnifi- 
cent voice,  her  stage  experience,  her  skill  in  effects, 
her  power  of  expression  —  went  into  the  performance 
of  that  simple  song.  The  greater  included  the  less. 
And  thus  all  the  intellectual  and  practical  training 
that  any  woman  can  have,  all  her  public  action  and  her 
active  career,  will  make  her,  if  she  be  a  true  woman, 
more  admirable  as  a  wife,  a  mother,  and  a  friend.  The 
greater  includes  the  less  for  her  also. 

Of  course  this  is  a  statement  of  general  facts  and 
tendencies.     There  must  be  amoni^  women,  as  among 


GBEATER  INCLUDES  LESS.  121 

men,  an  endless  variety  of  individual  temperaments. 
There  will  alwaj's  be  plent}^  whose  career  will  illustrate 
the  infirmities  of  genius,  and  whom  no  trainnig  can 
convince  that  two  and  two  make  four.  But  the  general 
fact  is  sure.  As  no  sensil)le  man  would  seriously  prefer 
for  a  wife  a  Hindoo  or  Tahitian  woman  rather  than  one 
bred  in  England  or  America,  so  every  further  advan- 
tage of  education  or  opportunity  will  only  unprove,  not 
impair,  the  true  womanly  type. 

Lucy  Stone  once  said,  ''  Woman's  nature  was  stamped 
and  sealed  by  the  Almighty,  and  there  is  no  danger 
of  her  unsexing  herself  while  his  eye  watches  her." 
Margaret  Fuller  said,  ^'One  hour  of  love  will  teach  a 
woman  more  of  her  true  relations  than  all  your  phil- 
osophizing." These  were  the  testimony  of  women  who 
had  studied  Greek,  and  were  only  the  more  womanly 
for  the  study.  They  are  worth  the  opinions  of  a  million 
half-developed  beings  like  the  Duchess  de  Fontanges, 
who  was  described  as  being  ''as  beautiful  as  an  angel 
and  as  silly  as  a  goose."  The  greater  includes  the  less. 
Your  view  from  the  mountain-side  ma}'  be  very  pretty, 
but  she  who  has  taken  one  step  higher  commands  3'our 
view  and  her  own  also.  It  was  no  dreamy  recluse,  but 
the  accomplished  and  experienced  Stendhal,  who  wrote, 
'•The  joys  of  the  gay  world  do  not  count  for  much 
with  happy  women."  ^ 

If  a  highly  educated  man  is  incapable  and  unpractical, 
we  do  not  say  that  he  is  educated  too  well,  but  not  well 
enough.  He  ought  to  know  what  he  knows,  and  other 
things    also.     Xever  yet  did  I  see  a  woman  too  well 

1  De  I'Amour,  par  de  Stendhal  (Henri  Beyle)  :  "  Les  plaisirs  du  grand 
monde  n'en  sont  pas  pour  les  femmes  heureuses,"  p.  189. 


122  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

educated  to  be  a  wife  and  a  mother ;  but  I  know  multi- 
tudes who  deplore,  or  have  reason  to  deplore,  every 
day  of  their  lives,  the  untrained  and  unfurnished  minds 
that  are  so  ill-prepared  for  these  sacred  duties.  Every 
step  towards  equalizing  the  opportunities  of  men  and 
women  meets  with  resistance,  of  course ;  but  every 
step,  as  it  is  accomplished,  leaves  men  still  men,  and 
women  still  women.  And  as  we  who  heard  Adelaide 
Phillips  felt  that  she  had  never  had  a  better  tribute  to 
her  musical  genius  than  that  young  Irish  girl's  tears  ; 
so  the  true  woman  will  feel  that  all  her  college  training 
for  instance,  if  she  has  it,  may  have  been  well  in- 
vested, even  for  the  sake  of  the  baby  on  her  knee. 
And  it  is  to  be  remembered,  after  all,  that  each  human 
being  lives  to  unfold  his  or  her  own  powers,  and  do  his 
or  her  own  duties  lirst,  and  that  neither  woman  nor  man 
has  the  right  to  accept  a  merely  secondary  and  subor- 
dinate life.  A  noble  woman  must  be  a  noble  human 
being ;  and  the  most  sacred  special  duties,  as  of  wife 
or  mother,  are  all  included  in  this,  as  the  greater  in- 
cludes the  less. 


A   CO-PARTNEBSHIP.  123 


XXXIII. 
A  CO-PARTXERSHIP. 

Marriage,  considered  merely  in  its  financial  and 
business  relations,  may  be  regarded  as  a  permanent 
co-partnersbip. 

Now,  in  an  ordinarj^  co-partnership,  there  is  very 
often  a  complete  division  of  labor  among  the  partners. 
If  they  manufacture  locomotive-engines,  for  instance, 
one  partner  perhaps  superintends  the  works,  another 
attends  to  mechanical  inventions  and  improvements, 
another  travels  for  orders,  another  conducts  the  corre- 
spondence, another  receives  and  pays  out  the  money. 
The  latter  is  not  necessarily  the  head  of  the  firm. 
Perhaps  his  place  could  l)e  more  easily  filled  than  some 
of  the  other  posts.  Nevertheless,  more  money  passes 
through  his  hands  than  through  those  of  all  the  others 
put  together.  Now,  should  he,  at  the  3'ear's  end,  call 
together  the  inventor  and  the  superintendent  and  the 
traveller  and  the  correspondent,  and  say  to  them,  "I 
have  earned  all  this  money  this  year,  but  I  will  gener- 
ously give  you  some  of  it,"  — he  would  be  considered 
simply  impertinent,  and  would  hardly  have  a  chance  to 
repeat  the  offence,  the  year  after. 

Yet  precisely  what  would  be  called  folly  in  this  busi- 
ness partnership  is  constantly  done  by  men  in  the  co- 
partnership of  marriage,  and  is  there  called  "  common- 


124  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

sense"  and  "social  science"  and  "political  econ- 
omy." 

For  instance,  a  farmer  works  himself  half  to  death 
in  the  hay-field,  and  his  wife  meanwhile  is  working 
herself  wholly  to  death  in  the  dairy.  The  neighbors 
come  in  to  sympathize  after  her  demise  ;  and,  during 
the  few  months'  interval  before  his  second  marriage, 
they  say  approvingly,  "He  was  always  a  generous 
man  to  his  folks!  He  was  a  good  provider!"  But 
where  was  the  room  for  generosit}^,  any  more  than  the 
member  of  any  other  firm  is  to  be  called  generous, 
when  he  keeps  the  books,  receipts  the  bills,  and  divides 
the  money? 

In  case  of  the  farming  business,  the  share  of  the 
wife  is  so  direct  and  unmistakable  that  it  can  hardl}"  be 
evaded.  If  any  thing  is  earned  by  the  farm,  she  does 
her  distinct  and  important  share  of  the  earning.  But 
it  is  not  necessary  that  she  should  do  even  that,  to 
make  her,  by  all  the  rules  of  justice,  an  equal  partner, 
entitled  to  her  full  share  of  the  financial  proceeds. 

Let  us  suppose  an  ordinary  case.  Two  3'oung 
people  are  married,  and  begin  life  together.  Let  us 
suppose  them  equally  poor,  equally  capable,  equally 
conscientious,  equally  healthy.  They  have  children. 
Those  children  must  be  supported  by  the  earning  of 
money  abroad,  by  attendance  and  care  at  home.  If  it 
requires  patience  and  labor  to  do  the  outside  work,  no 
less  is  required  inside.  The  duties  of  the  household 
are  as  hard  as  the  duties  of  the  shop  or  office.  If  the 
wife  took  her  Inisband's  work  for  a  day,  she  would 
probably  be  glad  to  return  to  her  own.  So  would  the 
husband  if  he  undertook  hers.     Their  duties  are  ordi- 


A    CO-PARTNERSHIP.  125 

narily  as  distinct  and  as  equal  as  those  of  two  partners 
in  an}^  other  co-partnership.  It  so  happens,  that  the 
outdoor  partner  has  the  handling  of  the  money ;  but 
does  that  give  him  a  right  to  claim  it  as  his  exclusive 
earnings  ?  No  more  than  in  any  other  business  opera- 
tion. 

He  earned  th'e  money  for  tlie  children  and  the  house- 
hold. She  disbursed  it  for  the  children  and  the  house- 
hold. The  very  laws  of  nature,  by  giving  her  the 
children  to  bear  and  rear,  absolve  her  from  the  duty 
of  their  support,  so  long  as  he  is  alive  who  was  left 
free  by  nature  for  that  purpose.  Her  task  on  the 
average  is  as  hard  as  his  :  nay,  a  portion  of  it  is  so 
especially  hard  that  it  is  distinguished  from  all  others 
by  the  name  '-labor."  If  it  does  not  earn  money, 
it  is  because  it  is  not  to  be  measured  in  money,  while 
it  exists  —  nor  to  be  replaced  by  money,  if  lost.  If  a 
business  man  loses  his  partner,  he  can  obtain  another : 
and  a  man,  no  doubt,  may  take  a  second  wife  ;  but  he 
cannot  procure  for  his  children  a  second  mother.  In- 
deed, it  is  a  palpable  insult  to  the  whole  relation  of 
husband  and  wife  when  one  compares  it,  even  in  a 
financial  light,  to  that  of  business  partners.  It  is  only 
because  a  constant  effort  is  made  to  degrade  the  prac- 
tical position  of  woman  below  even  this  standard  of 
comparison,  that  it  becomes  her  duty  to  claim  for  her- 
self at  least  as  much  as  this. 

There  was  a  tradition  in  a  town  where  I  once  lived, 
that  a  certain  Quaker,  who  had  married  a  fortune,  was 
once  heard  to  repel  his  wife,  who  had  asked  him  for 
money  in  a  public  phxce,  with  the  response,  "Rachel, 
where    is    that   ninepence    I    gave    tlieo    yesterday?" 


126  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

When  I  read  in  Scribner's  Monthly  an  article  de- 
riding the  right  to  representation  of  the  Massachusetts 
women  who  pay  two  millions  of  tax  on  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  million  dollars  of  property,  —  asserting 
that  they  produced  nothing  of  it ;  that  it  was  only 
"  men  who  produced  this  wealth,  and  bestowed  it  upon 
these  women;"  that  it  was  "all  drawn  from  land 
and  sea  by  the  hands  of  men  whose  largess  testifies 
alike  of  their  love  and  their  munificence," — I  must 
say  that  I  am  reminded  of  Rachel's  ninepeuce. 


ONE  BESFONSIBLE  HEAD.''  127 


XXXIV. 

"ONE   RESPONSIBLE   HEAD.'^ 

When  we  look  througli  any  business  directory,  there 
seem  to  be  ahiiost  as  many  co-partnerships  as  single 
dealers ;  and  three-quarters  of  these  co-partnerships 
appear  to  consist  of  precisely  two  persons,  no  more,  no 
less.  These  partners  are,  in  the  e^^e  of  the  law,  equal. 
It  is  not  found  necessary  under  the  law,  to  make  a 
general  provision  that  in  each  case  one  partner  should 
be  supreme  and  the  other  subordinate.  In  many  cases, 
by  the  terms  of  the  co-partnership  there  are  limitations 
on  one  side  and  special  privileges  on  the  other,  —  mar- 
riage settlements,  as  it  were  ;  but  the  general  law  of 
co-partnership  is  based  on  the  presumption  of  equality. 
It  would  be  considered  infinitely  absurd  to  require,  that, 
as  the  general  rule,  one  party  or  the  other  should  be  in 
a  state  of  coverture,  during  which  the  very  being  and 
existence  of  the  one  should  be  suspended,  or  entirely 
merged  and  incorporated  into  that  of  the  other. 

And  yet  this  requirement,  which  would  be  an  admit- 
ted absurdity  in  the  case  of  two  business  partners,  is 
precisely  that  which  the  English  common  law  still  lays 
down  in  case  of  husband  and  wife.  The  words  which 
I  employed  to  describe  it,  in  the  preceding  sentence, 
are  the  very  phrases  in  which  Blackstone  describes  the 
legal   position   of   women.     And   though  the   English 


128  C02niON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

common  law  has  been,  in  this  respect,  greatly  modified 
and  superseded  by  statute  law  ;  3^et,  when  it  comes  to 
an  argument  on  woman  suffrage,  it  is  constautl}^  this 
same  tradition  to  which  men  and  even  women  habitually 
appeal,  —  the  necessity  of  a  single  head  to  the  domes- 
tic partnership,  and  the  necessity  that  the  husband 
should  be  that  head.  This  is  especially  true  of  English 
men  and  women  ;  but  it  is  true  of  Americans  as  well. 
Nobody  has  stated  it  more  tersely  than  Fitzjames 
Stephen,  in  his  "Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity" 
(p.  21G),  when  arguing  against  Mr.  Mill's  view  of  the 
equality  of  the  sexes. 

"Marriage  is  a  contract,  one  of  the  princiisal  objects  in 
which  is  the  government  of  a  family. 

"  This  government  must  be  vested,  either  by  law  or  by  con- 
tract, in  the  hands  of  one  of  the  two  married  persons." 

[Then  follow  some  collateral  points,  not  bearing  on 
the  present  question.] 

"  Therefore  if  marriage  is  to  be  permanent,  the  government 
of  the  family  must  be  put  by  law  and  by  morals  into  the 
hands  of  the  husband,  for  no  one  proposes  to  give  it  to  the 
wife." 

This  argument  he  calls  "  as  clear  as  that  of  a  propo- 
sition in  Euclid."  He  thinks  that  the  business  of  life 
can  be  carried  on  by  no  other  method.  How  is  it,  then, 
that  when  we  come  to  what  is  called  technically  and 
especially  the  ' '  business  ' '  of  every  day,  this  whole  fine- 
spun theory  is  disregarded,  and  men  come  together  in 
partnership  on  the  basis  of  equality? 

Nobody  is  farther  than  I  from  regarding  marriage  as 
a  mere  business  partnership.     But  it  is  to  be  observed 


"  ONE  BE  SPONSIBLE  HEAD:'  129 

that  the  points  wherein  it  differs  from  a  merely  mercan- 
tile connection  are  points  that  should  make  equality 
more  easy,  not  more  difficult.  The  tie  between  two 
ordinary  business  partners  is  merely  one  of  interesi :  it 
is  based  on  no  sentiments,  sealed  by  no  solemn  pledge, 
enriched  by  no  home  associations,  cemented  by  no  new 
o-eneration  of  youns;  life.  If  a  relation  like  this  is 
found  to  work  well  on  terms  of  equality,  —  so  well  that 
a  large  part  of  the  business  of  the  world  is  done  by  it, 
—  is  it  not  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  same  equal  rela- 
tion cannot  exist  in  the  married  partnership  of  husband 
and  wife?  And  if  law,  custom,  society,  all  recognize 
this  fact  of  equality  in  the  one  case,  why,  in  the  name 
of  common-sense,  should  they  not  equally  recognize  it 
in  the  other? 

And,  again,  it  must  be  far  easier  to  assign  a  sphere 
to  each  partner  in  marriage  than  in  business ;  and 
therefore  the  double  headship  of  a  family  will  involve 
less  need  of  collision.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  the 
external  support  of  the  family  can  devolve  upon  the 
husband,  unquestioned  by  the  wife  ;  and  its  internal 
economy  upon  the  wife,  unquestioned  by  the  husband. 
No  voluntary  distribution  of  powers  and  duties  between 
business  partners  can  work  so  naturally,  on  the  whole, 
as  this  simple  and  easy  demarcation,  with  which  the 
claim  of  suffrage  makes  no  necessary  interference.  It 
may  require  angry  discussion  to  decide  which  of  two 
business  partners  shall  buy,  and  which  shall  sell ;  which 
shall  keep  the  books,  and  which  do  the  active  work, 
and  so  on  ;  but  all  this  is  usually  settled  in  married  life 
by  the  natural  order  of  things.  Even  in  regard  to  the 
management  of  children,  where  collision    is    likely  to 


130  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

come,  if  anywhere,  it  can  commonly  be  settled  by  that 
happy  formula  of  Jean  Paul's,  that  the  mother  usually 
supplies  the  commas  and  the  semicolons  in  the  child's 
book  of  life,  and  the  father  the  colons  and  periods. 
And  as  to  matters  in  general,  the  simple  and  practical 
rule,  that  each  question  that  arises  should  be  decided 
by  that  partner  who  has  personally  most  at  stake  in 
it,  will,  in  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  carry 
the  domestic  partnership  through  without  shipwreck. 
Those  who  cannot  meet  the  hundredth  case  by  mutual 
forbearance  are  in  a  condition  of  shipwreck  already. 


ASKING   FOB  MONEY.  131 


XXXV. 

ASKING   FOR  MONEY. 

OxE  of  the  very  best  wives  and  mothers  I  have  ever 
known  once  said  to  me,  that,  whenever  her  daughters 
should  be  married,  she  should  stipulate  in  their  behalf 
with  their  husbands  for  a  regular  sum  of  money  to  be 
paid  them,  at  certain  intervals,  for  their  personal  ex- 
penditures. "Whether  this  sum  was  to  be  larger  or 
smaller,  was  a  matter  of  secondary  importance,  —  that 
must  depend  on  the  income,  and  the  style  of  living ; 
but  the  essential  thing  was,  that  it  should  come  to  the 
wife  regularly,  so  that  she  should  no  more  have  to 
make  a  special  request  for  it  than  her  husband  would 
have  to  ask  her  for  a  dinner.  This  lady's  own  hus- 
band was,  as  I  happened  to  know,  of  a  most  generous 
disposition,  was  devotedly  attached  to  her,  and  denied 
her  nothing.  She  herself  was  a  most  accurate  and 
careful  manager.  There  was  every  thing  in  the  house- 
hold to  make  the  financial  arrangements  flow  smoothly. 
Yet  she  said  to  me,  "I  suppose  no  man  can  possibly 
understand  how  a  sensitive  woman  shrinks  from  asking 
for  money.  If  I  can  prevent  it,  my  daughters  shall 
never  have  to  ask  for  it.  If  they  do  their  duty  as 
wives  and  mothers  they  have  a  right  to  their  share  of 
the  joint  income,  within  reasonable  limits ;  for  cer- 
tainly no  money  could  buy  the  services  they  render. 


132  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

Moreover,  the}'  have  a  right  to  a  share  in  determining 
what  those  reasonable  limits  are." 

Now,  it  so  happened  that  I  had  m^^self  gone  through 
an  experience  which  enabled  me  perfectly  to  compre- 
hend this  feeling.  In  early  life  I  was  for  a  time  in  the 
emplo}'  of  one  of  my  relatives,  who  paid  me  a  fair 
salary  but  at  no  definite  periods  :  I  was  at  liberty  to 
ask  him  for  money  up  to  a  certain  amount  whenever  I 
needed  it.  This  seemed  to  me,  in  advance,  a  most 
agreeable  arrangement ;  but  I  found  it  quite  otherwise. 
It  proved  to  be  very  disagreeable  to  ask  for  money : 
it  made  every  dollar  seem  a  special  favor ;  it  brought 
up  all  kinds  of  misgivings,  as  to  whether  he  could 
spare  it  without  inconvenience,  whether  he  really 
thought  my  services  worth  it,  and  so  on.  My  em- 
ployer was  a  thoroughly  upright  and  noble  man,  and  I 
was  much  attached  to  him.  I  do  not  know  that  he 
ever  refused  or  demurred  when  I  asked  for  mone3^ 
The  anno3'ancc  was  simply  in  the  process  of  asking ; 
and  this  became  so  great,  that  I  often  underwent  seri- 
ous inconvenience  rather  than  ask.  Finally,  at  the 
year's  end,  I  surprised  my  relative  very  much  by  say- 
ing that  I  would  accept,  if  necessary,  a  lower  salary, 
on  condition  that  it  should  be  paid  on  regular  days, 
and  as  a  matter  of  business.  The  wish  was  at  once 
granted,  without  the  reduction  ;  and  he  probably  never 
knew  what  a  relief  it  was  to  me. 

Now,  if  a  3^oung  man  is  liable  to  feel  this  pride  and 
reluctance  toward  an  employer,  even  if  a  kinsman,  it  is 
easy  to  understand  how  many  women  ma}'  feel  the  same, 
even  in  regard  to  a  husband.  And  I  fancy  that  those 
who  feel  it  most  are  often  the  most  conscientious  and 


ASKING   FOR  MONEY.  133 

high-minded  women.  It  is  nnreasonable  to  say  of  such 
persons,  "Too  sensitive!  Too  fastidious!"  For  it 
is  juct  this  qnalit}'  of  finer  sensitiveness  which  men 
affect  to  prize  in  a  woman,  and  wish  to  protect  at  all 
hazards.  The  very  fact  that  a  husband  is  generous  ; 
the  very  fact  that  his  income  is  limited, — these  may 
bring  in  conscience  and  gratitude  to  increase  the  re- 
straining influence  of  pride,  and  make  the  wife  less 
willing  to  ask  money  of  such  a  husband  than  if  he 
were  a  rich  man  or  a  mean  one.  The  only  dignified 
position  in  which  a  man  can  place  his  wife  is  to  treat 
her  at  least  as  well  as  he  would  treat  a  housekeeper, 
and  give  her  the  comfort  of  a  perfectly  clear  and  defi- 
nite arrangement  as  to  money  matters.  She  will  not 
then  be  under  the  necessity  of  nerving  herself  to  solicit 
from  him  as  a  favor  what  Lhe  really  needs  and  has  a 
right  to  spend.  Nor  will  she  be  torturing  herself,  on 
the  other  side,  with  the  secret  fear  lest  she  has  asked 
too  much  and  more  than  they  can  really  spare.  She 
will,  in  short,  be  in  the  position  of  a  woman  and  a 
wife,  not  of  a  child  or  a  toy. 

I  have  carefully  avoided  using  the  word  ' '  allow- 
ance "  in  what  has  been  said,  because  that  word  seems 
to  imply  the  untrue  and  mean  assumption  that  the 
money  is  all  the  husband's  to  give  or  withhold  as  he  will. 
Yet  I  have  heard  this  sort  of  phrase  from  men  who 
were  living  on  a  wife's  property  or  a  wife's  earnings  ; 
from  men  who  nominally  kept  boarding-houses,  work- 
ing a  little,  wdiile  their  wives  worked  hard,  — or  from 
farmers,  who  worked  hard,  and  made  their  wives  work 
fiarder.  Even  in  cases  where  the  wife  has  no  direct 
part  in  the  money-making,  the  indirect  part  she  per- 


134  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

forms,  if  she  takes  faithful  charge  of  her  household,  is 
so  essential,  so  beyond  all  compensation  in  money, 
that  it  is  an  utter  shame  and  impertinence  in  the  hus- 
band when  he  speaks  of  "giving"  money  to  his  wife 
as  if  it  were  an  act  of  favor.  It  is  no  more  an  act 
of  favor  than  when  the  business  manager  of  a  firm 
pays  out  money  to  the  unseen  partner  who  directs  the 
indoor  business  or  runs  the  machinery.  Be  the  joint 
income  more  or  less,  the  wife  has  a  claim  to  her  hon- 
orable sharo,  and  that  as  a  matter  of  right,  without 
the  daily  ignominy  of  sending  in  a  petition  for  it. 


W03fA^^H00D  AXD  MOTHEBHOOB.         135 


XXXYI. 

WOMANHOOD   AXD  MOTHERHOOD. 

I  ALWAYS  groan  in  spirit  when  any  advocate  of 
woman  suffrage,  carried  away  by  zeal,  says  any  thing 
disrespectful  about  the  nursery.  It  is  contrary  to  the 
general  tone  of  feeling  among  us,  I  am  sure,  to  speak 
of  this  priceless  institution  as  a  trivial  or  degrading 
sphere,  unworthy  the  emancipated  woman.  It  is 
rarely  that  anybody  speaks  in  this  way ;  but  a  single 
such  utterance  hurts  us  more  than  any  arguments  of 
the  enemy.  For  every  thoughtful  person  sees  that  the 
cares  of  motherhood,  though  not  the  whole  duty  of 
woman,  are  an  essential  part  of  that  duty,  wherever 
they  occur ;  and  that  no  theory  of  womanly  life  is 
good  for  any  thing  which  undertakes  to  leave  out  the 
cradle.  Even  her  school-education  is  based  on  this 
fact,  were  it  only  on  Stendhal's  theory  that  the  sons 
of  a  woman  who  reads  Gibbon  and  Schiller  will  be 
more  likely  to  show  talent  than  those  of  one  who  only 
tells  her  l)eads  and  reads  Mme.  de  Genlis.  And  so 
clearly  is  this  understood  among  us,  that,  when  we  ask 
for  suffrage  for  woman,  it  is  almost  always  claimed 
that  she  needs  it  for  the  sake  of  her  children.  To 
secure  her  in  her  right  to  them  ;  to  give  her  a  voice  in 
their  education ;  to  give  her  a  vote  in  the  government 
beneath  which  they  are  to  live,  — these  points  are  sel- 


136  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

clom  omitted  in  our  statement  of  her  claims.  Any 
thing  else  would  be  an  error. 

But  there  is  an  error  at  the  other  extreme,  which  is 
still  greater.  A  woman  should  no  more  merge  herself 
in  her  child  than  in  her  husband.  Yet  we  often  hear 
that  she  should  do  just  this.  What  is  all  the  public 
sphere  of  woman,  it  is  said,  —  what  good  can  she  do 
by  all  her  speaking,  and  writing,  and  action,  —  com- 
pared with  that  she  does  by  properly  training  the 
soul  of  one  child?  It  is  not  easy  to  see  the  logic  of 
this  claim. 

For  of  what  service  is  that  child  to  be  in  the  uni- 
verse, except  that  he,  too,  may  write  and  speak  and  act 
for  that  which  is  good  and  true  ?  And  if  the  mother 
foregoes  all  this  that  the  child,  in  growing  up,  may 
simply  do  what  the  mother  has  left  undone,  the  world 
gains  nothing.  In  sacrificing  her  own  work  to  her 
child's,  moreover,  she  exchanges  a  present  good  for 
a  prospective  and  merel}^  possible  one.  If  she  does 
this  through  overwhelming  love,  we  can  hardly  blame 
her  ;  but  she  cannot  justify  it  before  reason  and  truth. 
Her  child  may  die,  and  the  service  to  mankind  be  done 
by  neither.  Her  child  may  grow  up  with  talents  un- 
like hers,  or  with  none  at  all ;  as  the  son  of  Howard 
was  selfish,  the  son  of  Chesterfield  a  boor,  and  the  sou 
of  Wordsworth  in  the  last  degree  prosaic. 

Or  the  special  occasion  when  she  might  have  done 
great  good  may  have  passed  before  her  boy  or  girl 
grows  up  to  do  it.  If  Mrs.  Child  had  refused  to  write 
"  An  Appeal  for  that  Class  of  Americans  called  Afri- 
cans," or  Mrs.  Stowe  had  laid  aside  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cal)in,"  or  Florence  Nisihtinaale  had  declined  to  ao  to 


WOMAXIIOOD   AXD   MOTHERHOOD.  137 

the  Crimea,  on  the  ground  that  a  woman's  true  work 
was  through  the  nursery,  and  they  must  all  wait  for 
that,  the  eonsequence  would  be  that  these  things  would 
have  remained  undone.  The  brave  acts  of  the  world 
must  be  done  when  occasion  offers,  by  the  first  brave 
soul  who  feels  moved  to  do  them,  man  or  woman.  If 
all  the  children  in  all  the  nurseries  are  thereby  helped 
to  do  other  brave  deeds  when  their  turn  comes,  so 
much  the  better  But  when  a  great  opportunity  offers 
for  direct  aid  to  the  world,  we  have  no  right  to  trans- 
fer that  work  to  other  hands  —  not  even  to  the  hands 
of  our  own  children.  We  must  do  the  work,  and  train 
the  children  besides. 

I  am  willing  to  admit,  therefore,  that  the  work  of 
education,  in  any  form,  is  as  great  as  any  other  work  ; 
but  I  fail  to  see  why  it  should  be  greater.  Usefulness 
is  usefulness  :  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  post- 
poned from  generation  to  generation,  or  why  it  is  better 
to  rear  a  serviceal)le  human  being  than  to  be  one  in  per- 
son. Carry  the  theory  consistently  out :  each  mother 
must  simply  rear  her  daughter  that  she  in  turn  may 
rear  somebody  else ;  from  each  generation  the  work 
will  devolve  upon  a  succeeding  generation,  so  that  it 
will  be  only  the  last  woman  who  will  personally  do 
any  service,  except  that  of  motherhood  ;  and  when  her 
time  comes  it  will  be  too  late  for  any  service  at  all. 

If  it  be  said,  "But  some  of  these  children  will  be 
men.  who  are  necessarily  of  more  use  than  women,"  I 
deny  the  necessity.  If  it  be  said,  "The  children  may 
be  many,  and  the  mother,  who  is  but  one,  may  well  be 
sacrificed, "it  might  be  replied,  that, as  one  great  act  may 
be  worth  many  smaller  ones,  so  all  the  numerous  children 


138  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

and  grandchildren  of  a  woman  like  Lucretia  Mott  may 
not  collectively  equal  the  usefulness  of  herself  alone. 
If  she,  like  many  women,  had  held  it  her  duty  to  re- 
nounce all  other  duties  and  interests  from  the  time  her 
motherhood  began,  I  think  that  the  world,  and  even 
her  children,  would  have  lost  more  than  ever  could 
have  been  gained  by  her  more  complete  absorption  in 
the  nurser3\ 

The  true  theory  seems  a  very  simple  one.  The  very 
fact  that  during  one-half  the  years  of  a  woman's  aver- 
age life  she  is  made  incapable  of  child-bearing,  shows 
that  there  are,  even  for  the  most  prolific  and  devoted 
mothers,  duties  other  than  the  maternal.  Even  during 
the  most  absorbing  years  of  motherhood,  the  wisest 
women  still  try  to  keep  up  tlieir  interest  in  society,  in 
literature,  in  the  world's  affairs  —  were  it  onl}-  for  their 
children's  sake.  Multitudes  of  women  will  never  be 
mothers  ;  and  those  more  fortunate  ma}^  find  even  the 
usefulness  of  their  motherhood  surpassed  by  what  they 
do  in  other  ways.  If  maternal  duties  interfere  in 
some  degree  with  all  other  functions,  the  same  is  true, 
though  in  a  far  less  degree,  of  those  of  a  father.  But 
there  are  those  who  combine  both  spheres.  The  Ger- 
man poet  Wieland  claimed  to  be  the  parent  of  four- 
teen children  and  forty  books  ;  and  who  knows  by 
which  parentage  he  served  the  world  the  best? 


A   GERMAN  POINT  OF  VIEW.  139 


XXXVII. 

A   GERMAX  POIXT   OF  VIEW. 

Many  Americans  will  remember  the  favorable  im- 
pression made  by  Professor  Christlieb  of  Gennany, 
when  he  attended  the  meetino-  of  the  Evano-elical  Alii- 
ance  in  New  York  some  four  or  five  years  ago.  His 
writings,  like  his  presence,  show  a  most  liberal  spirit ; 
and  perhaps  no  man  has  ever  presented  the  more  ad- 
vanced evangelical  theology  of  Germany  in  so  attrac- 
tive a  light.  Yet  I  heard  a  story  of  him  the  other 
day,  which  either  showed  him  in  an  aspect  quite  un- 
desirable, or  else  gave  a  disagreeable  view  of  the  social 
position  of  women  in  German3\ 

The  stor}^  was  to  the  effect,  that  a  young  American 
student  recently  called  on  Professor  Christlieb  with  a 
letter  of  introduction.  The  professor  received  him  cor- 
diall3%  and  soon  entered  into  conversation  about  the 
United  States.  He  praised  the  natural  features  of  the 
country,  and  the  enterprising  spirit  of  our  citizens,  but 
expressed  much  solicitude  about  the  future  of  the  na- 
tion. On  being  asked  his  reasons,  he  frankly  ex- 
pressed his  opinion  that  "the  Spirit  of  Christ"  was 
not  here.  Being  still  further  pressed  to  illustrate  his 
meaning,  he  gave,  as  instances  of  this  deficiency,  not 
the  Credit  Mobilier  or  the  Tweed  scandal,  but  such 
alarming  facts  as  the  following.     He  seriously  declared, 


140  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    ]VOMEN. 

that,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  he  had  heard  an 
American  married  woman  say  to  her  husband,  "Dear, 
will  you  bring  me  my  shawl  ?  ' '  and  the  husband  had 
brought  it.  He  further  had  seen  a  husband  return 
home  at  evening,  and  entjr  the  parlor  where  his  wife 
was  sitting,  —  perhaps  in  the  very  best  chair  in  the 
room,  —  and  the  wife  not  only  did  not  go  and  get 
his  dressing-gown  and  slippers,  but  she  even  remained 
seated,  and  left  him  to  find  a  chair  as  he  could.  These 
things,  as  Professor  Christlieb  pointed  out,  suggested  a 
serious  deficiency  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  in  the  com- 
munity. 

With  our  American  habits  and  interpretations,  it  is 
hard  to  see  this  matter  just  as  the  professor  sees  it. 
One  would  suppose,  that,  if  there  is  any  meaning  in  the 
command,  "Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so 
fulfil  the  law  of  Christ,"  a  little  of  such  fulfilling 
might  sometimes  Ijc  good  for  the  husband,  as  for  the 
wife.  And  though  it  would  undoubtedl}^  be  more 
pleasing  to  see  every  wife  so  eager  to  receive  her 
husl)an<l  tliat  she  would  naturally  spring  from  her  chair 
and  run  to  kiss  him  in  the  doorway,  yet,  where  such 
devotion  was  wanting,  it  would  be  but  fair  to  inquire 
which  of  the  two  had  had  the  more  fatiguing  daj^'s 
work,  and  to  whom  the  easy-chair  justly  belonged. 
The  truth  is,  I  suppose,  that  the  good  professor's 
remark  indicated  simply  a  "survival"  in  his  mind,  or 
in  his  social  circle,  of  a  barbarous  tradition,  under 
which  the  wife  of'  a  Mexican  herdsman  cannot  eat  at 
the  table  with  her  "  lord  and  master,"  and  the  wife  of 
a  German  professor  must  vacate  the  best  arm-chair  at 
his  approach. 


A    GERMAN  POINT  OF   VIEW.  141 

If  so,  it  is  not  to  be  regretted  that  we  in  this  country 
have  outgrown  a  relation  so  unequal.  Nor  am  I  at  all 
afraid  that  the  great  Teacher,  who,  pointing  to  the 
nuiltitude  for  whom  he  was  soon  to  die,  said  of  them, 
••This  is  m}'  brother  and  my  sister  and  my  mother," 
would  have  objected  to  any  mutual  and  equal  service 
l)etween  man  and  woman.  If  we  assume  that  two 
human  beings  have  immortal  souls,  there  can  be  no 
want  of  dignity  to  eitlier  in  serving  the  other.  The 
greater  equality  of  woman  in  AmerFca  seems  to  be,  on 
this  reasoning,  a  proof  of  the  presence,  not  the  absence, 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ :  nor  does  Dr.  Christlieb  seem  to 
me  quite  worthy  of  the  beautiful  name  he  bears,  if  he 
feels  otherwise. 

But,  if  it  is  really  true  that  a  German  professor  has 
to  cross  the  Atlantic  to  witness  a  phenomenon  so  very 
simple  as  that  of  a  lover-like  husband  1)riugmg  a  shawl 
for  his  wife,  I  should  say,  Let  the  immigration  from 
Germany  be  encouraged  as  much  as  possible,  in  order 
that  even  the  most  learned  immigrants  may  discoA'cr 
somethino-  new. 


142  COM^WJS-  SENSE  ABOUT   W02fEN. 


XXXYIII. 
CHILDLESS  WOMEX. 

It  has  not  alwaj^s  been  regarded  as  a  thing  cred- 
itable to  woman,  tliat  she  was  the  mother  of  the  human 
race.  On  the  contrary,  the  fact  was  often  mentioned, 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  a  distinct  proof  of  inferiority. 
The  question  was  discussed  in  the  mediaeval  Council  of 
Ma90u,  and  the  position  taken  that  woman  was  no  more 
entitled  to  rank  as  human,  because  she  brought  forth 
men,  than  the  garden-earth  could  take  rank  with  the 
fruit  and  flowers  it  bore.  The  same  view  was  revived 
by  a  Latin  writer  of  1595,  on  the  thesis  "  MuUeres  non 
homines  esse^"  a  French  translation  of  which  essay  was 
printed  under  the  title  of  ''  Paradoxe  sur  lesfemmes^" 
in  1766.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  used  the  same  image, 
carrying  it  almost  as  far  :  — 

"  Woman  is  given  to  man  that  she  may  bear  children. 
Woman  is  our  propert}' ;  we  are  not  hers  :  because  she 
produces  children  for  us  ;  we  do  not  3'ield  any  to  her : 
she  is  therefore  our  possession,  as  the  fruit-tree  is  that 
of  the  gardener. ' ' 

Even  the  fact  of  parentage,  therefore,  has  been 
adroitly  converted  into  a  ground  of  mferiority  for 
women  ;  and  this  is  ostensibly  the  reason  why  lineage 
has  been  reckoned,  almost  eveiywhere,  through  the 
male  line  onl}-,  ignoring  the  female  ;  just  as,  in  tracing 


CHILDLESS    WOMEN.  143 

the  seed  of  some  rare  fruit,  the  gardener  takes  no 
genealogical  account  of  the  garden  where  it  grew. 
The  view  is  now  seldom  expressed  in  full  force :  the 
remnant  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  lingering  impression, 
that,  at  any  rate,  a  woman  who  is  not  a  mother  is  of 
no  account ;  as  worthless  as  a  fruitless  garden  or  a 
barren  fruit-tree.  Created  only  for  a  certain  object, 
she  is  of  course  valueless  unless  that  object  be  fulfilled. 

But  the  race  must  have  fathers  as  well  as  mothers  ; 
and,  if  we  look  for  evidence  of  public  service  in  great 
men,  it  certainly  does  not  always  lie  in  leaving  children 
to  the  republic.  On  the  contrary,  the  rule  has  rather 
seemed  to  be,  that  the  most  eminent  men  have  left  their 
bequest  of  service  in  any  form  rather  than  in  that  of  a 
great  famil}^  Recent  inquiries  into  the  matter  have 
brought  out  some  remarkable  facts  in  this  regard. 

As  a  rule,  there  exist  no  living  descendants  in  the 
male  line  from  the  great  authors,  artists,  statesmen, 
soldiers,  of  England.  It  is  stated  that  there  is  not  one 
such  descendant  of  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  But- 
ler, DrjTlen,  Pope,  Cowper,  Goldsmith,  Scott,  Byron, 
or  Moore ;  not  one  of  Drake,  Cromwell,  Monk,  Marl- 
borough, Peterborough,  or  Nelson  ;  not  one  of  Strafford, 
Ormond,  or  Clarendon  ;  not  one  of  Addison,  Swift,  or 
Johnson  ;  not  one  of  Walpole,  Bolingbroke,  Chatham, 
Pitt,  Fox,  Burke,  Grattan,  or  Canning ;  not  one  of 
Bacon,  Locke,  Newton,  or  Davy ;  not  one  of  Hume, 
Gibbon,  or  Macaulay  ;  not  one  of  Hogarth  or  Reynolds  ; 
not  one  of  Garrick,  John  Kemble,  or  Edmund  Kean. 
It  would  be  easy  to  make  a  similar  American  list,  be- 
ginning with  AVashington,  of  whom  it  was  said  that 
"  Providence  made  him  childless  that  his  country  might 
call  him  Fatlier." 


144  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

Now,  however  we  may  regret  that  these  great  men 
have  left  little  or  no  posterity,  it  does  not  occur  to  any 
one  as  affording  any  serious  drawback  upon  their  ser- 
vice to  their  nation.  Certainly  it  does  not  occur  to  us 
that  they  would  have  been  more  useful  had  they  left 
children  to  the  world,  but  rendered  it  no  other  service. 
Lord  Bacon  says  that  "  he  that  hath  wife  and  children 
hath  given  hostages  to  fortune  ;  for  they  are  impedi- 
ments to  great  enterprises,  either  of  virtue  or  mischief. 
Certainly  the  best  works,  and  of  greatest  merit  to 
the  public,  have  proceeded  from  unmarried  or  childless 
men  ;  which,  both  in  affection  and  means,  have  married 
and  endowed  the  public."  And  this  is  the  view  gen- 
erally accepted,  — that  the  public  is  in  such  cases  rather 
the  gainer  than  the  loser,  and  has  no  right  to  complain. 

Since,  therefore,  every  child  must  have  a  father  and 
a  mother  both,  and  neither  will  alone  suffice,  wh}^  should 
we  thus  heap  gratitude  on  men  wdio  from  preference 
or  from  necessity  have  remained  childless,  and  yet 
habitually  treat  women  as  if  they  could  render  no  ser- 
vice to  their  country  except  by  giving  it  children  ?  If 
it  be  folly  and  shame,  as  I  think,  to  belittle  and  decry 
the  dignity  and  worth  of  motherhood,  as  some  are  said 
to  do,  it  is  no  less  folly,  and  shame  quite  as  great,  to 
deny  the  grand  and  patriotic  service  of  many  women  who 
have  died  and  left  no  children  among  their  mourners. 
Plato  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  woman,  — the  eloquent 
Diotima,  in  the  "Banquet,"  —  that,  after  all,  we  are 
more  grateful  to  Homer  and  Hesiod  for  the  children  of 
their  brain  than  if  they  had  left  human  offspring. 


PBEVEXriON   OF  CBUELTY   TO   MOTUEES.      145 


XXXIX. 

THE   PREYEXTIOX  OF   CRUELTY  TO  MOTHERS. 

From  the  Societ}^  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Animals  we  have  now  advanced  to  a  similar  society  for 
the  benefit  of  children.  When  shall  we  have  a  move- 
ment for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  mothers  ? 

A  Rhode  Island  lady,  who  had  never  taken  any 
interest  in  the  woman  suffrage  movement,  came  to  me 
in  great  indignation  the  other  day,  asking  if  it  was 
true  that  under  Rhode  Island  laws  a  husband  might, 
by  his  last  will,  bequeath  his  child  away  from  its 
mother,  so  that  she  might,  if  the  guardian  chose,  never 
see  it  again.  I  said  that  it  was  undoubtedly  true,  and 
that  such  were  still  the  laws  in  many  States  of  the 
Union. 

"But,"  she  said,  "it  is  an  outrage.  The  husband 
may  have  been  one  of  the  weakest  or  worst  men  in 
the  world  ;  he  may  have  persecuted  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren ;  he  may  have  made  the  will  in  a  moment  of 
anger,  and  have  neglected  to  alter  it.  At  any  rate,  he 
is  dead,  and  the  mother  is  living.  The  guardian  whom 
he  appoints  may  turn  out  a  very  malicious  man,  and 
may  take  pleasure  in  torturing  the  mother  ;  or  he  may 
bring  up  the  children  in  a  way  their  mother  thinks  ruin- 
ous for  them.  Why  do  not  all  the  mothers  cry  out 
against  such  a  law?  " 


146  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

"  I  wish  they  would,"  I  said.  "  I  have  been  trying 
a  good  many  years  to  make  them  even  understand  what 
the  law  is  ;  but  they  do  not.  People  who  do  not  vote 
pay  no  attention  to  the  laws,  until  they  suffer  from 
them." 

She  went  away  protesting  that  she,  at  least,  would 
not  hold  her  tongue  on  the  subject,  and  I  hope  she  will 
not      The  actual  text  of  the  law  is  as  follows  :  — 

''  Every  person  authorized  by  law  .to  make  a  will,  except 
married  women,  shall  have  a  right  to  appoint  by  his  will  a 
guardian  or  guardians  for  his  children  during  their  minority."  ^ 

There  is  not  associated  with  this,  in  the  statute,  the 
slightest  clause  in  favor  of  the  mother ;  nor  any  thing 
which  could  limit  the  power  of  the  guardian  by  requir- 
ing deference  to  her  wishes,  although  he  could,  in  case 
of  gross  neglect  or  abuse,  be  removed  by  the  court,  and 
another  guardian  appointed.  There  is  not  a  line  of 
positive  law  to  protect  the  mother.  Now,  in  a  case  of 
absolute  wrong,  a  single  sentence  of  law  is  worth  all 
the  chivalrous  courtesy  this  side  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

It  is  idle  to  say  that  such  laws  are  not  executed. 
They  are  executed.  I  have  had  letters,  too  agonizing 
to  print,  expressing  the  sufferings  of  mothers  under 
laws  like  these.  There  lies  before  me  a  letter,  —  not 
from  Rhode  Island,  —  written  by  a  widowed  mother 
who  suffers  daily  tortures,  even  while  in  possession  of 
her  child,  at  the  knowledge  that  it  is  not  legally  hers, 
but  held  only  by  the  temporary  permission  of  the 
guardian  appointed  under  her  husband's  will.  "I  beg 
you,"  she  says,  "  to  take  this  will  to  the  hill-top,  and 

1  Gen.  Statutes  R.  I.,  chap.  154,  sect.  1. 


PBEVENTION   OF  CBVELTT   TO   MOTHEBS.      147 

ur2:e  law-makers  in  our  next  Lesfislature  to  free  the 
state  record  from  the  shameful  stor}^  that  no  mother 
can  control  her  child  unless  it  is  born  out  of  wed- 
lock " 

'•  From  the  moment,"  she  saj's,  "  when  the  will  was 
read  to  me,  I  have  made  no  effort  to  set  it  aside.  I 
wait  till  God  reveals  his  plans,  so  far  as  my  own  condi- 
tion is  concerned.  But  out  of  my  keen  comprehension 
of  this  great  wrong,  notwithstanding  my  submission  for 
myself,  m}^  whole  soul  is  stirred,  —  for  my  child,  who 
is  a  little  woman  ;  for  all  women,  that  the  laws  may  be 
changed  which  subject  a  true  woman,  a  devoted  wife, 
a  faithful  mother,  to  such  mental  agonies  as  I  have 
endured,  and  shall  endure  till  I  die." 

In  a  later  letter  she  sa^^s,  "I  now  have  his  [the 
guardian's]  solemn  promise  that  he  will  not  remove  her 
from  ni}^  control.  To  some  extent  my  sufferings  are 
allayed  ;  and  yet  never,  till  she  arrives  at  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  shall  I  fully  trust."  I  wish  that  mothers 
who  dwell  in  sheltered  and  happy  homes  would  try  to 
bring  to  their  minds  the  condition  of  a  mother  whose 
possession  of  her  only  child  rests  upon  the  "  promise  " 
of  a  comparative  stranger.  We  should  get  beyond 
the  meaningless  cry,  "  I  have  all  the  rights  I  want,"  if 
mothers  could  only  remember  that  among  these  rights, 
in  most  States  of  the  Union,  the  right  of  a  widowed 
mother  to  her  child  is  not  included. 

By  strenuous  effort,  the  law  on  this  point  has  in 
Massachusetts  been  gradually  amended,  till  it  now 
stands  thus  :  The  father  is  authorized  to  appoint  a 
guardian  by  will  ;  but  the  powers  of  this  guardian  do 
not  entitle  him  to  take  the  child  from  the  mother. 


148  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

"  The  guardian  of  a  minor  .  .  .  shall  have  the  custody  and 
tuition  of  his  ward ;  and  the  care  and  management  of  all  his 
estate,  except  that  the  father  of  the  minor,  if  living,  and  in 
case  of  his  death  the  mother,  they  being  respectively  competent 
to  transact  their  own  business,  shall  be  entitled  to  the  custody 
of  the  person  of  the  minor  and  the  care  of  his  education."  ^ 

Down  to  1870  the  cruel  words  "while  she  remains 
unmarried  ' '  followed  the  word  ' '  mother  ' '  in  the  above 
law.  Until  that  time,  the  motlier  if  remarried  had  no 
claim  to  the  custody  of  her  child,  in  case  the  guardian 
wished  otherwise  ;  and  a  very  painful  scene  once  took 
place  in  a  Boston  court- room,  where  children  were 
forced  away  from  their  mother  by  the  officers,  under 
this  statute,  in  spite  of  her  tears  and  theirs  ;  and  this 
when  no  sort  of  personal  charge  had  been  made  against 
her.  This  could  not  now  happen  in  Massachusetts,  but 
it  might  still  happen  in  some  other  States.  It  is  true 
that  men  are  almost  always  better  than  their  laws  ;  but, 
while  a  bad  law  remains  on  the  statute-book,  it  gives  to 
any  unscrupulous  man  the  power  to  be  as  bad  as  the 
law. 

1  Public  Statutes,  chap.  139,  sect.  4. 


SOCIETY. 


'^  Place  the  sexes  in  right  relations  of  mutual  respect,  and 
a  severe  morality  gives  that  essential  charm  to  woman  which 
educates  all  that  is  delicate,  jjoetic,  and  self-sacrificing,  breeds 
courtesy  and  learning,  conversation  and  wit,  in  her  rough 
mate ;  so  that  I  have  thought  a  sufficient  measure  of  civiliza- 
tion is  the  influence  of  good  women." — Emekson:  Society 
and  Solitude,  p.  21. 


FOAM  AXD   CUB  RENT.  151 


XL. 

FOAM   AXD   CURREXT. 

Sometimes,  on  the  beach  at  Newport,  I  look  at  the 
gayly  dressed  ladies  in  their  phaetous,  and  then  at  the 
foam  which  trembles  on  the  breaking  wave,  or  lies  pal- 
pitating in  creamy  masses  on  the  beach.  It  is  as  pretty 
as  they,  as  light,  as  fresh,  as  delicate,  as  changing ; 
and  no  doubt  the  graceful  foam,  if  it  thinks  at  all, 
fancies  that  it  is  the  chief  consummate  product  of  the 
ocean,  and  that  the  main  end  of  the  vast  currents  of 
the  mighty  deep  is  to  ^ield  a  few  glittering  bubbles 
like  those.  At  least,  this  seems  to  me  what  man}^  of 
the  fair  ladies  think. 

Here  is  a  nation  in  which  the  most  momentous  social 
and  political  experiment  ever  tried  by  man  is  being 
worked  out,  day  by  day.  There  is  something  ocean- 
like in  the  way  in  which  the  great  currents  of  life,  race, 
religion,  temperament,  are  here  chafing  with  each  other, 
safe  from  the  storms  through  which  all  monarchical 
countries  may  yet  have  to  pass.  As  these  great  cur- 
rents heave,  there  are  tossed  up  in  every  watering-place 
and  every  city  m  America,  as  on  an  ocean-beach,  cer- 
tain pretty  bubbles  of  foam  ;  and  each  spot,  we  may 
suppose,  counts  its  own  bubbles  brighter  than  those  of 
its  neighbors,  and  christens  them  "society." 

It  is  an  unceasing  wonder  to  a  thoughtful  person,  at 


152  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

any  such  resort,  to  see  the  unconscious  way  in  which 
fashionable  society  accepts  the  foam,  and  ignores  the 
currents.  You  hear  people  talk  of  ''a  position  in  soci- 
ety," "  the  influential  circles  in  society,"  as  if  the  posi- 
tion they  mean  were  not  liable  to  be  shifted  in  a  day ; 
as  if  the  essential  influences  in  America  were  not  mainly 
to  be  sought  outside  the  world  of  fashion.  In  other 
countries  it  is  very  different.  The  circle  of  social  caste, 
whose  centre  you  touch  in  London,  radiates  to  the 
shores  of  the  island ;  the  upper  class  controls,  not 
merely  fashion,  but  government ;  it  rules  in  country 
as  well  as  city ;  genius  and  wealth  are  but  its  tribu- 
taries. Wherever  it  is  not  so,  it  is  because  England  is 
so  far  Americanized.  But  in  America  the  social  pres- 
tige of  the  cities  is  nothing  in  the  country  ;  it  is  a 
matter  of  the  pavement,  of  a  three-mile  radius. 

Go  to  the  farthest  borders  of  England  :  there  are  still 
the  "  county  families,"  and  you  meet  servants  in  livery. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  a  little  village  in  Northern  New 
Hampshire,  my  friend  was  visited  in  the  evening  by  the 
landlady,  who  said  that  several  of  their  "  most  fashion- 
able ladies  "  had  happened  in,  and  she  would  like  to 
exhibit  to  them  her  guest's  bonnet.  Then  the  different 
cities  ignore  each  other :  the  rulers  of  select  circles  in 
New  York  find  themselves  nobodies  in  Washington, 
while  a  Washington  social  passport  counts  for  as  little 
in  New  York.  Boston  and  Philadelphia  affect  to  ignore 
both  ;  and  St.  Louis  and  San  Francisco  have  their  own 
standards.  The  utmost  social  prestige  in  America  is 
local,  provincial,  a  matter  of  the  square  inch :  it  is  as 
if  the  foam  of  each  particular  beach  along  the  seacoast 
were  to  call  itself  "•  society." 


F0A3I  AND   CUBRENT.  153 

There  is  something  pathetic,  tlierefore,  in  the  unwea- 
ried pains  taken  by  ambitious  women  to  establish  a  place 
in  some  little,  local,  transitory  domain,  to  "bring  out" 
their  daughters  for  exhibition  on  a  given  evening,  to 
form  a  circle  for  them,  to  marry  them  well.  A  dozen 
3'ears  hence  the  millionnaires  wiiose  notice  they  seek 
may  be  paupers,  or  these  ladies  may  be  dwelling  in 
some  other  city,  where  the  visiting  cards  will  bear 
wholly  different  names.  How  idle  to  attempt  to  trans- 
port into  American  life  the  social  traditions  and  delu- 
sions which  require  monarcliy  and  primogeniture,  and 
a  standing  army,  to  keep  them  up  —  and  which  cannot 
hold  their  own  in  England,  even  with  the  aid  of  these  ! 

Every  woman,  like  every  man,  has  a  natural  desire 
for  influence  ;  and  if  this  instinct  yearns,  as  it  often 
should  yearn,  to  take  in  more  than  her  own  family,  she 
must  seek  it  somewhere  outside.  I  know  women  who 
bring  to  bear  on  the  building-up  of  a  frivolous  social 
circle  —  frivolous,  because  it  is  not  really  brilliant,  but 
only  showy  ;  not  really  gay,  but  only  bored  —  talent  and 
energy  enough  to  mfluence  the  mind  and  thought  of  the 
nation,  if  only  employed  in  some  effective  way.  Who 
are  the  women  of  real  influence  in  America  ?  They  are 
the  school-teachers,  through  whose  hands  each  success- 
ive American  generation  has  to  pass  ;  they  are  those 
wives  of  public  men  who  share  their  husbands'  labor, 
and  help  mould  their  work  ;  they  are  those  women,  wlio, 
through  their  personal  eloquence  or  through  the  press, 
are  distinctly  influencing  the  American  people  in  its 
growth.  The  influence  of  such  women  is  felt  for  good 
or  for  evil  in  every  page  they  print,  every  newspaper- 
column   they   fill :    the   individual  women   may   be   un- 


154  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOIfEN. 

worthy  their  posts,  but  it  is  they  who  have  got  hold  of 
the  lever,  and  gone  the  right  way  to  work.  As  Ameri- 
can society  is  constituted,  the  largest  "  social  success  " 
that  can  be  attained  here  is  trivial  and  local ;  and  you 
have  to  "make  believe  very  hard,"  like  that  other 
imaginary  Marchioness,  to  find  in  it  any  career  worth 
mentioning.  That  is  the  foam,  but  these  other  women 
are  dealins;  with  the  main  currents. 


JxY  SOCIETY.''  155 


XLI. 

"IX   SOCIETY." 

One  sometimes  hears  from  some  lady  the  remark 
that  very  few  people  ''in  societ}^ "  believe  in  any 
movement  to  enlarge  the  rights  or  duties  of  women. 
In  a  communit}^  of  more  marked  social  gradations 
than  our  own,  this  assertion,  if  true,  might  be  very 
important ;  and  even  here  it  is  worth  considering,  be- 
cause it  leads  the  way  to  a  little  social  philosophy. 
Let  us,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  begin  by  accepting 
the  assumption  that  there  is  an  inner  circle,  at  least  in 
our  large  cities,  which  claims  to  be  "society,"  par 
excellence.  What  relation  has  this  favored  circle,  if 
favored  it  be,  to  any  movement  relating  to  women? 

It  has,  to  begin  with,  the  same  relation  that  "so- 
ciety" has  to  every  movement  of  reform.  The  pro- 
portion of  smiles  and  frowns  offered  from  this  quarter 
to  the  woman-suffrage  movement,  for  instance,  is  about 
that  offered  to  the  anti-slaver}'  agitation :  I  see  no 
great  difference.  In  Boston,  for  example,  the  names 
contributed  by  "society"  to  the  woman-suffrage  festi- 
vals are  about  as  numerous  as  those  formerly  con- 
tributed to  the  anti-slavery  bazaars  ;  no  more,  no  less. 
Indeed,  they  are  very  often  the  same  names  ;  and  it  has 
been  curious  to  see,  for  nearly  fift}^  years,  how  radical 
tendencies   have   predominated   in   some  of   the  well- 


156  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

known  Boston  families,  and  conservative  tendencies  in 
others.  The  traits  of  blood  seem  to  ontlast  suc- 
cessive series  of  special  reforms.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
it  is  safe  to  assume,  that,  as  the  anti-slavery  movement 
prevailed  with  onl}^  a  moderate  amount  of  sanction 
from  "our  best  society,"  the  w^oman-suffrage  move- 
"ment,  which  has  at  least  an  equal  amount,  has  no 
reason  to  be  discourag-ed. 

But  on  looking  farther,  we  find  that  not  reforms 
alone,  but  often  most  important  and  established  insti- 
tutions, exist  and  flourish  with  only  incidental  aid  from 
those  "  in  society."  Take,  for  instance,  the  whole  pub- 
lic-school system  of  our  larger  cities.  Grant  that  out  of 
twenty  ladies  "  in  society,"  taken  at  random,  not  more 
than  one  would  personally  approve  of  women's  voting : 
it  is  doubtful  whether  even  that  proportion  of  them 
would  personall}^  favor  the  public-school  system  so  far 
as  to  submit  their  children,  or  at  least  their  girls,  to  it. 
Yet  the  public  schools  flourish,  and  give  a  better  train- 
ing than  most  private  schools,  in  spite  of  this  inert 
practical  resistance  from  those  "in  society."  The 
natural  inference  would  seem  to  be,  that  if  an  institu- 
tion so  well  established  as  the  public  schools,  and  so 
generally  recognized,  can  afford  to  be  ignored  by  "  so- 
ciety," then  certainly  a  wholly  new  reform  must  expect 
no  better  fate. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  apprehend  that  what  is  called 
"societ}^"  in  the  sense  of  the  more  fastidious  or  ex- 
clusive social  circle  in  any  communit}-,  exists  for  one 
sole  object,  —  the  preservation  of  good  manners  and 
social  refinements.  For  this  purpose  it  is  put  very 
largely  under  the  sway  of  women,  who  have,  all  the 


"  IN  SOCIETY.''  157 

world  over,  a  better  instinct  for  these  important  things. 
It  is  true  that  "society''  is  apt  to  do  even  this  duty 
very  imperfectly,  and  often  tolerates,  and  sometimes 
even  cultivates,  just  the  rudeness  and  discourtesy  that 
it  is  set  to  cure.  Nevertheless,  this  is  its  mission  ;  but 
so  soon  as  it  steps  beyond  this,  and  attempts  to  claim 
any  special  weight  outside  the  sphere  of  good  manners, 
it  shows  its  weakness,  and  must  jield  to  stronger 
forces. 

One  of  these  stronger  forces  is  religion,  which  should 
train  men  and  women  to  a  far  higher  standard  than 
"society"  alone  can  teach.  This  standard  should  be 
embodied,  theoretically,  in  the  Christian  Church  ;  but 
unhappily  ' '  society ' '  is  too  often  stronger  than  this 
embodiment,  and  turns  the  church  itself  into  a  mere 
temple  of  fashion.  Other  opposing  forces  are  known 
as  science  and  common-sense,  which  is  only  science 
written  in  short-hand.  On  some  of  these  various 
forces  all  reforms  are  based,  the  woman-suffrage  re- 
form among  them.  If  it  could  really  be  shown  that 
some  limited  social  circle  was  opposed  to  this,  then  the 
moral  would  seem  to  be,  "  So  much  the  worse  for  the 
social  circle."  It  used  to  be  thought  in  anti-slavery 
days  that  one  of  the  most  blessed  results  of  that  agita- 
tion was  the  education  it  gave  to  young  men  and 
women  who  would  otherwise  have  merely  grown  up 
"in  society,"  but  were  happily  taken  in  hand  by  a 
stronger  influence.  It  is  Goethe  who  suggests,  when 
discussing  Hamlet  in  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  that,  if  an 
oak  be  planted  in  a  flower-pot,  it  will  be  worse  in  the 
end  for  the  flower-pot  than  for  the  tree.  And  to  those 
who  watch,  year  after  year,  the  young  human  seedlings 


158  C02TM0N   SEXSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

planted  "  in  society,"  the  main  point  of  interest  lies  in 
the  discovery  which  of  these  are  likely  to  grow  into 
oaks. 

But  the  truth  is,  that  the  very  use  of  the  word 
"society"  in  this  sense  is  narrow  and  misleading. 
AYe  Americans  are  fortunate  enough  to  live  in  a  larger 
societ}^,  where  no  conventional  position  or  family  tradi- 
tions exert  an  influence  that  is  to  be  in  the  least  degree 
compared  with  the  influence  secured  by  education, 
energy,  and  character.  No  matter  how  fastidious  the 
social  circle,  one  is  constantly  struck  with  the  limita- 
tions of  its  influence,  and  with  the  little  power  exerted 
by  its  members  as  compared  with  that  which  may  easily 
be  wielded  by  tongue  and  pen.  No  merely  fashion- 
able woman  in  New  York,  for  instance,  has  a  position 
sufficiently  important  to  be  called  influential  compared 
with  that  of  a  woman  who  can  speak  in  public  so  as  to 
command  hearers,  or  can  write  so  as  to  secure  readers. 
To  be  at  the  head  of  a  normal  school,  or  to  be  a  pro- 
fessor in  a  college  where  co-education  prevails,  is  to 
have  a  swa}^  over  the  destinies  of  America  which  re- 
duces all  mere  ' '  social  position  "  to  a  matter  of  cards 
and  compliments  and  page's  buttons. 


THE  BATTLE   OF   THE   CARDS.  159 


XLII. 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  CARDS. 

The  great  winter's  contest  of  the  visiting-cards  re- 
commences at  the  end  of  every  autnmn.  Suspended 
during  the  summer,  or  only  renewed  at  oS^ewport  and 
such  thoroughbred  and  thoroughly  sophisticated  haunts, 
it  will  set  in  with  fury  in  the  habitable  regions  of  our 
cities  once  more.  Now  will  the  atmosphere  around 
Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York  be  darkened — or  whitened 
—  at  the  appointed  hour  by  the  shower  of  pasteboard 
transmitted  from  dainty  kid-gloved  hands  to  the  cot- 
ton-ojloved  hands  of  "John,"  throu<2fh  him  to  reach  the 
possibly  gloveless  hands  of  some  other  John,  who  stands 
obsequious  in  the  doorway.  Now  will  every  lady,  after 
John  has  slammed  the  door,  drive  happily  on  to  some 
other  door,  re-arranging,  as  she  goes,  her  displa}^  of 
cards,  laid  as  if  for  a  game  on  the  opposite  seat  of  her 
carriage,  and  dealt  perhaps  in  four  suits,  —  her  own 
cards,  her  daughters',  her  husband's,  her  "Mr.  and 
Mrs."  cards,  and  who  knows  how  many  more  ?  AVith 
all  this  ammunition,  what  a  very  mitrailleuse  of  good 
society  she  becomes  ;  what  an  accumulation  of  polite 
attentions  she  may  discharge  at  any  door !  That  one 
well-appointed  woman,  as  she  sits  in  her  carriage, 
represents  the  total  visiting  power  of  self,  husband, 
daughters,  and  possibly  a  son  or  two  beside.     She  has 


160        ccnniON  sense  about  women. 

all  their  counterfeit  presentments  in  her  hands.  How 
happy  she  is  !  and  how  happy  will  the  others  be  on  her 
return,  to  think  that  dear  mamma  has  disposed  of  so 
many  dear,  beloved,  tiresome,  social  foes  that  morning  ! 
It  will  be  three  months  at  least,  they  think,  before  the 
A's  and  the  B's  and  the  C's  will  have  to  be  ''done" 
again. 

A\\ !  but  who  knows  how  soon  these  fatiguing  letters 
of'  the  alphabet,  rallying  to  the  defence,  will  come, 
pasteboard  in  hand,  to  return  the  onset  ?^  In  this  con- 
test, fair  ladies,  "there  are  blows  to  take,  as  well  as 
blows  to  give,"  in  the  words  of  the  immortal  Webster. 
Some  day,  on  returning,  you  will  find  a  half-dozen 
cards  on  3'our  own  table  that  will  undo  all  this  morn- 
ing's work,  and  send  you  forth  on  the  war-path  again. 
Is  it  not  like  a  campaign  ?  It  is  from  this  subtle  mili- 
tary analogy,  doubtless,  that  when  gentlemen  happen 
to  quarrel,  in  the  very  best  society,  they  exchange 
cards  as  preliminary  to  a  duel ;  and  that,  when  French 
journalists  fight,  all  other  French  journalists  show  their 
sympathy  for  the  survivor  by  sending  him  their  cards. 
When  we  see,  therefore,  these  heroic  ladies  riding  forth 
in  the  social  battle's  magnificently  stern  array,  our 
hearts  render  them  the  homage  due  to  the  brave. 
When  we  consider  how  complex  their  military  equip- 
ment has  grown,  we  fancy  each  of  these  self-devoted 
mothers  to  be  an  Arnold  Winkelried,  receiving  in  her 
martyr-breast  the  points  of  a  dozen  different  cards, 
and  shouting,  "  Make  way  for  liberty  !  "  For  is  it  not 
securing  liberty  to  have  cleared  off  a  dozen  calls  from 
your  list,  and  found  nobody  at  home  ? 

If  this  sort  of  thing  goes  on,  who  can  tell  where  the 


THE  BATTLE   OF  THE  CAEDS.  161 

paper  warfare  shall  end?  If  ladies  may  leave  cards 
for  their  husbands,  who  are  never  seen  out  of  AVall 
Street,  except  when  they  are  seen  at  their  clubs  ;  or 
for  their  sons,  who  never  forsake  their  billiards  or  their 
books, — wliy  can  they  not  also  leave  them  for  their 
ancestors,  or  for  their  remotest  posterity?  Who  knows 
but  people  may  3'et  drop  cards  in  the  names  of  the 
grandchildren  whom  they  only  wish  for,  or  may  recon- 
cile hereditary  feuds  by  interchanging  pasteboard  in 
behalf  of  tvv'o  hostile  grandparents  who  died  half  a 
century  ago? 

And  there  is  another  social  observance  in  which  the 
introduction  of  the  card  system  may  yet  be  destined 
to  save  much  labor,  —  the  attendance  on  fashionable 
churches.  Already,  it  is  said,  a  family  may  sometimes 
reconcile  devout  observance  with  a  late  breakfast,  by 
stationing  the  family  carriage  near  the  church-door  — 
empty.  Really,  it  would  not  be  a  much  emptier  ob- 
servance to  send  the  cards  alone  by  the  footman  ;  and 
doubtless,  in  the  progress  of  civilization,  we  shall  yet 
reach  that  point.  It  will  have  many  advantages.  The 
effete  of  society,  as  some  cruel  satirist  has  called  them, 
may  then  send  their  orisons  on  pasteboard  to  as  many 
different  shrines  as  they  approve  ;  thus  insuring  their 
souls,  as  it  were,  at  several  different  offices.  Church 
architecture  may  be  simplified,  for  it  will  require  noth- 
ing but  a  card-basket.  The  clergyman  will  celebrate 
his  solemn  ritual,  and  will  then  look  in  that  convenient 
receptacle  for  the  names  of  his  fellow-worshippers,  as  a 
fine  lady,  after  her  "reception,"  looks  over  the  cards 
her  footman  hands  her.  to  know  which  of  her  dear 
friends  she  has  been  welcoming.     Religion  as  well  as 


162  C03/J/0.Y   SEXSE  ABOUT   W02IE]^. 

social  proprieties  will  glide  smoothly  over  a  surface  of 
glazed  pasteboard ;  and  it  will  be  only  very  humble 
Christians  indeed  who  will  do  their  worshipping  in  per- 
son, and  will  hold  to  the  worn-out  and  obsolete  practice 
of  "No  Cards." 


SOME   WOBKING-WOMEN.  163 


XLIII. 
SOME  WORKIXG-WO:\IEX. 

It  is  almost  a  stereotyped  remark,  that  the  women  of 
the  more  fashionable  and  worldly  class,  in  America,  are 
indolent,  idle,  incapable,  and  live  feeble  and  lazy  lives. 
It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that,  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  compelled,  by  the  very  circumstances  of  their 
situation,  to  lead  very  laborious  lives,  requiring  great 
strength  and  energy.  Whether  many  of  their  pursuits 
are  frivolous,  is  a  different  question  ;  but  that  they  are 
arduous,  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  can  doubt.  I  think 
it  can  be  easily  shown  that  the  common  charges  against 
American  fashionable  women  do  not  hold  against  the 
class  I  describe. 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  charge  of  evading  the 
cares  of  housekeeping,  and  of  preferring  a  boarding- 
house  or  hotel.  But  no  woman  with  high  aims  in  the 
world  of  fashion  can  afford  to  relieve  herself  from 
household  cares  in  this  way,  except  as  an  exceptional 
or  occasional  thing.  She  must  keep  house  in  order  to 
have  entertainments,  to  form  a  circle,  to  secure  a  posi- 
tion. The  law  of  give  and  take  is  as  absolute  in  soci- 
ety as  in  business  ;  and  the  very  first  essential  to  social 
position  in  our  larger  cities  is  a  household  and  a  hospi- 
tality of  one's  own.  It  is  far  more  practicable  for  a 
family  of  high  rank  in  England  to  live  temporarily  in 


164  COMMON  SEySE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

lodgings  in  London,  than  for  any  family  with  social 
aspirations  to  do  the  same  in  New  York.  The  mar- 
ried woman  who  seeks  a  position  in  the  world  of  society, 
must,  therefore,  keep  house. 

And,  with  housekeeping,  there  comes  at  once  to  the 
American  woman  a  world  of  care  far  beyond  that  of 
her  European  sisters.  Abroad,  every  thing  in  domestic 
life  is  systematized ;  and  services  of  any  grade,  up  to 
that  of  housekeeper  or  steward,  can  be  secured  for 
money,  and  for  a  moderate  amount  of  that.  The  mere 
amount  of  money  might  not  trouble  the  American  wo- 
man ;  but  where  to  get  the  service  ?  Such  a  thing  as  a 
trained  housekeeper,  who  can  undertake,  at  any  salary, 
to  take  the  work  off  the  shoulders  of  the  lady  of  the 
house, — such  a  thing  America  hardly  affords.  With- 
out this,  the  multiplication  of  servants  only  increaseth 
sorrow  ;  the  servants  themselves  are  commonly  an  un- 
disciplined mob,  and  the  lady  of  the  house  is  like  a 
general  attempting  to  drill  his  whole  command  person- 
ally, without  the  aid  of  a  staff-officer  or  so  much  as  a 
sergeant.  For  an  occasional  grand  entertainment,  she 
can,  perhaps,  import  a  special  force  ;  some  fashionable 
sexton  can  arrange  her  invitations,  and  some  genteel 
caterer  her  supper.  But  for  the  daily  routine  of  the 
household  —  guests,  children,  door-bell,  equipage  — 
there  is  one  vast,  constant  toil  every  day  ;  and  the 
woman  who  would  have  these  things  done  well  must 
give  her  own  orders,  and  discipline  her  own  retinue. 
The  husband  may  have  no  "  business,"  his  wealth  may 
supersede  the  necessity  of  all  toil  beyond  daily  bil- 
liards ;  but  for  the  wife  wealth  means  business,  and, 
the  more  complete  the  social  triumph,  the  more  over- 
whelming the  daily  toil. 


SOME    WOBKIXG-WOMEX.  165 

For  instance,  I  know  a  fair  woman  in  an  Atlantic 
city  who  is  at  the  head  of  a  household  including  six 
children  and  nine  servants.  The  whole  domestic  man- 
agement is  placed  absolutely  in  her  hands  :  she  engages 
or  dismisses  every  person  employed,  incurs  every  ex- 
pense, makes  ever;^  purchase,  and  keeps  all  the  ac- 
counts ;  her  husband  only  ordering  the  fuel,  directing 
the  affairs  of  the  stable,  and  drawing  checks  for  the 
bills.  Every  hour  of  her  morning  is  systematically  ap- 
propriated, to  these  things.  Among  other  things,  she 
has  to  provide  for  nine  meals  a  day ;  in  dining-room, 
kitchen,  and  nursery,  three  each.  Then  she  has  to  plan 
her  social  duties,  and  to  drive  out,  exquiaitely  dressed, 
to  make  her  calls.  Then  there  are  constantl}"  dinner- 
parties and  evening  entertainments ;  she  reads  a  little, 
and  takes  lessons  in  one  or  two  languages.  Meanwhile 
her  husband  has  for  daily  occupation  his  books,  his 
club,  and  the  above-mentioned  light  and  easy  share 
in  the  cares  of  the  household.  Many  men  in  his 
position  do  not  even  keep  an  account  of  personal 
expenditures. 

There  is  nothing  exceptional  in  this  lady's  case,  ex- 
cept that  the  work  ma}'  be  better  done  than  usual :  the 
husband  could  not  well  contribute  more  than  his  pres- 
ent share  without  hurting  domestic  discipline  ;  nor  does 
the  wife  do  all  this  from  pleasure,  but  in  a  manner  from 
necessity.  It  is  the  condition  of  her  social  position : 
to  change  it,  she  must  withdraw  herself  from  her  social 
world.  A  few  improvements,  such  as  "  family  hotels," 
are  doing  something  to  relieve  this  class  to  whom  lux- 
ury means  labor.  The  great  under-current  which  is 
sweeping  us  all  toward  some  form  of  associated  life  is 


166  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

as  obvious  in  this  new  improvement  in  housekeeping,  as 
in  co-operative  stores  or  trades-unions ;  but  it  will 
nevertheless  be  long  before  the  "women  of  society" 
in  America  can  be  any  thing  but  a  hard-working  class. 
The  question  is  not  whether  such  a  life  as  I  have 
described  is  the  ideal  life.  JNIy  ix)int  is  that  it  is,  at 
any  rate,  a  life  demanding  far  more  of  energy  and  toil, 
at  least  in  America,  than  the  men  of  the  same  class  are 
called  upon  to  exhibit.  There  is  growing  up  a  class  of 
men  of  leisure  in  America ;  but  there  are  no  women 
of  leisure  in  the  same  circle.  The}^  hold  their  social 
position  on  condition  of  "  an  establishment,"  and  an 
establishment  makes  them  working-women.  One  re- 
sult is  the  constant  exodus  of  this  class  to  Europe, 
where  domestic  life  is  just  now  easier.  Another  conse- 
quence is,  that  3'ou  hear  woman  suffrage  denounced  by 
women  of  this  class,  not  on  the  ground  that  it  involves 
any  harder  work  than  they  already  do,  but  on  the 
ground  that  they  have  work  enough  already,  and  will 
not  bear  the  suggestion  of  any  more. 


THE  EMPIRE   OF  MAJS^NEBS.  167 


XLIV. 

THE   EMPIRE   OF  MANJ^ERS. 

I  WAS  present  at  a  lively  discourse,  administered  by 
a  young  lady  just  from  Europe  to  a  veteran  politician. 
"It  is  of  very  little  consequence,"  she  said,  "what 
kind  of  men  you  send  out  as  foreign  ministers.  The 
thing  of  real  importance  is  that  they  should  have  the 
right  kind  of  wives.  Any  man  can  sign  a  treaty,  I 
suppose,  if  you  tell  him  what  kind  of  treaty  it  must  be. 
But  all  his  social  relations  with  the  nations  to  which 
you  send  him  will  depend  on  his  wife."  There  was 
some  truth,  certainl}^  in  this  audacious  conclusion.  It 
reminded  me  of  the  saying  of  a  modern  thinker,  "  The 
only  empire  freely  conceded  to  women  is  that  of  man- 
ners —  but  it  is  worth  all  the  rest  put  together. ' ' 

Every  one  instinctively  feels  that  the  graces  and 
amenities  of  life  must  be  largely  under  the  direction  of 
women.  The  fact  that  this  feeling  has  been  carried 
too  far,  and  has  led  to  the  dwarfing  of  women's  intel- 
lect, must  not  lead  to  a  rejection  of  this  important 
social  sphere.  It  is  too  strong  a  power  to  be  ignored. 
George  Eliot  saj^s  well  that  "  the  commonest  man,  who 
has  his  ounce  of  sense  and  feeling,  is  conscious  of  the 
difference  between  a  lovely,  delicate  woman,  and  a 
coarse  one.  Even  a  dog  feels  a  difference  in  their 
presence."      At   a   summer   resort,   for   instance,  one 


168  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

sees  women  who  may  be  intellectually  very  ignorant 
and  narrow,  yet  whose  mere  manners  give  them  a 
social  power  which  the  highest  intellects  might  envy. 
To  lend  joy  and  grace  to  all  one's  little  world  of  friend- 
ship ;  to  make  one's  house  a  place  which  every  guest 
enters  with  eagerness,  and  leaves  with  reluctance ;  to 
lend  encouragement  to  the  timid,  and  ease  to  the  awk- 
ward ;  to  repress  violence,  restrain  egotism,  and  make 
even  controversy  courteous,  —  these  belong  to  the  em- 
pire of  woman.  It  is  a  sphere  so  important  and  so 
beautiful,  that  even  courage  and  self-devotion  seem  not 
quite  enough,  without  the  addition  of  this  supremest 
charm. 

This  courtesy  is  so  far  from  implying  falsehood,  that 
its  very  best  basis  is  perfect  simplicity.  Given  a  natu- 
rally sensitive  organization,  a  loving  spirit,  and  the 
early  influence  of  a  refined  home,  and  the  foundation  of 
fine  manners  is  secured.  A  person  so  favored  may  be 
reared  in  a  log-hut,  and  may  pass  easily  into  a  palace  ; 
the  few  needful  conventionalities  are  so  readily  ac- 
quired. But  I  think  it  is  a  mistake  to  tell  children,  as 
we  sometimes  do,  that  simplicit}^  and  a  kind  heart  are 
absolutely  all  that  are  needful  in  the  way  of  manners. 
There  are  persons  in  whom  simplicity  and  kindness  are 
inborn,  and  who  3^et  never  attain  to  good  manners  for 
want  of  refined  perceptions.  And  it  is  astonishing 
how  much  refinement  alone  can  do,  even  if  it  is  not 
very  genuine  or  very  full  of  heart,  to  smooth  the  paths 
and  make  social  life  attractive. 

All  the  acute  observers  have  recognized  the  difference 
between  the  highest  standard,  which  is  nature's,  and 
that  next  to  the  highest,  which  is  art's.     George  Eliot 


THE  EMPIBE   OF  MAXXERS.  169 

speaks  of  that  fiue  polish  which  is  "the  expensive 
substitute  for  simplicity,"  and  Tennyson  says  of  man- 
ners, — 

"  Kind  nature's  are  the  best:  those  next  to  best 
That  fit  us  hke  a  nature  second-hand ; 
"Which  are  indeed  the  manners  of  the  great." 

In  our  own  national  histor3%  we  have  learned  to  recog- 
nize that  the  personal  demeanor  of  women  may  be  a 
social  and  political  force.  The  slave-power  owed  much 
of  its  prolonged  control  at  AVashiugton,  and  the  larger 
part  of  its  favor  in  Europe,  to  the  fact  that  the  manners 
of  Southern  women  had  been  more  sedulously  trained 
than  those  of  Northern  women.  Even  at  this  moment, 
one  may  see  at  any  watering-place  that  the  relative  so- 
cial influence  of  different  cities  does  not  depend  upon 
the  intellectual  training  of  their  women,  so  much  as 
on  the  manners.  And,  even  if  this  is  very  unreasonable, 
the  remedy  would  seem  to  be,  not  to  go  about  lecturing 
on  the  intrinsic  superiority  of  the  ]Muses  to  the  Graces, 
but  to  pay  due  homage  at  all  the  shrines. 

It  is  a  great  deal  to  ask  of  reformers,  especiall}^,  that 
they  should  be  ornamental  as  well  as  useful ;  and  I 
would  by  no  means  indorse  the  views  of  a  lady  who 
once  told  me  that  she  was  ready  to  adopt  the  most 
radical  views  of  the  women-reformers  if  she  could  see 
one  well-dressed  woman  wlio  accepted  them.  The  place 
where  we  should  draw  the  line  between  independence 
and  deference,  between  essentials  and  non-essentials, 
between  great  ideas  and  little  courtesies,  will  probably 
never  be  determined  —  except  by  actual  examples. 
Yet  it  is  safe  to  fall  back  on  Miss  Edgeworth's  maxim 


170  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

in  "Helen,"  that  "  Every  one  who  makes  goodness  dis- 
agreeable commits  high  treason  against  virtue."  And 
it  is  not  a  pleasant  result  of  our  good  deeds,  that  others 
should  be  immediately  driven  into  bad  deeds  by  the 
burninof  desire  to  be  unlike  us. 


GIELSTEBOUS^''ESS.''  171 


XLV. 
«  GIRLSTEROUSXESS." 

Thet  tell  the  story  of  a  little  boy.  a  young  scion 
of  the  house  of  Beecher,  that,  on  heing  rebuked  for 
some  noisy  proceeding,  in  which  his  little  sister  had 
also  shared,  he  claimed  that  she  also  should  be  in- 
cluded in  the  indictment.  '•  If  a  boy  makes  too  much 
noise,"  he  said,  '*you  tell  him  he  mustn't  be  boister- 
ous. Well,  then,  when  a  girl  makes  just  as  much  noise, 
you  ought  to  tell  her  not  to  be  girlsteroiis." 

I  think  that  we  should  accept,  with  a  sense  of  grati- 
tude, this  addition  to  the  language.  It  supplies  a  name 
for  a  special  phase  of  feminine  demeanor,  inevitably 
brought  out  of  modern  womanhood.  Any  transitional 
state  of  society  develops  some  evil  with  the  good. 
Good  results  are  unquestionably  proceeding  from  the 
greater  freedom  now  allowed  to  women.  The  draw- 
back is.  that  we  are  developing,  here  and  now,  more  of 
^'  girls terousness  "  than  is  apt  to  be  seen  in  less-enlight- 
ened countries. 

The  more  complete  the  subjection  of  woman,  the 
more  "subdued"  in  CA^ery  sense  she  is.  The  typical 
woman  of  savage  life  is,  at  least  in  youth,  gentle,  shy, 
retiring,  timid.  A  Bedouin  woman  is  modest  and  hum- 
ble ;  an  Indian  girl  has  a  voice  "gentle  and  low." 
The  utmost  stretch  of  tlie  imagination  cannot  picture 


172  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

either  of  them  as  "  girlsterous."  That  perilous  quality 
can  only  come  as  woman  is  educated,  self-respecting, 
emancipated.  "  Girlsterousness  "  is  the  excess  attend- 
ant on  that  virtue,  the  shadow  which  accompanies  that 
light.  It  is  more  visible  in  England  than  in  France, 
in  America  than  in  England. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that,  if  a  girl  wishes  to  be  noisy, 
she  can  be  as  noisy  as  anybody.  Her  noise,  if  less 
clamorous,  is  more  shrill  and  penetrating.  The  shrieks 
of  schoolgirls,  playing  in  the  yard  at  recess-time,  seem 
to  drown  the  voices  of  the  boys.  As  you  enter  an  even- 
ing party,  it  is  the  women's  tones  you  hear  most  con- 
spicuously. There  is  no  defect  in  the  organ,  but  at 
least  an  adequate  vigor.  In  travelling  by  rail,  when 
sitting  near  some  rather  under-bred  party  of  youths 
and  damsels,  I  have  commonly  noticed  that  the  girls 
were  the  noisiest.  The  young  men  appeared  more  re- 
gardful of  public  opinion,  and  looked  round  with  solici- 
tude, lest  they  should  attract  too  much  attention.  It  is 
"girlsterousness"  that  dashes  straight  on,  regardless 
of  all  observers. 

Of  course  reformers  exhibit  their  full  share  of  this 
undesirable  quality.  Where  the  emancipation  of  wo- 
men is  much  discussed  in  any  circle,  some  young  girls 
will  put  it  in  practice  gracefully  and  with  dignity, 
others  rudel3\  Yet  even  the  rudeness  may  be  but  a 
temporary  phase,  and  at  last  end  well.  When  women 
were  being  first  trained  as  physicians,  years  ago,  I  re- 
member a  young  girl  who  came  from  a  Southern  State 
to  a  Northern  city,  and  attended  the  medical  lectures. 
Having  secured  her  lecture-tickets,  she  also  bought 
season-tickets  to  the  theatre  and  to  the  pistol-gallery. 


''  GIELSTEROUS^'^ESS.''  173 

laid  in  a  box  of  cigars,  and  began  her  professional  train- 
ing. If  she  meant  it  as  a  satire  on  the  pursuits  of  the 
young  gentlemen  around  her,  it  was  not  without  point. 
But  it  was,  I  suppose,  a  clear  case  of  '•  girlsterous- 
ness  ; ' '  and  I  dare  say  that  she  sowed  her  wild  oats 
much  more  innocently  than  many  of  her  male  contem- 
poraries, and  that  she  has  long  since  become  a  sedate 
matron.  But  I  certainly  cannot  commend  her  as  a 
model. 

Yet  I  must  resolutely  deny  that  any  sort  of  hoyden- 
ishness  or  indecorum  is  an  especial  characteristic  of 
radicals,  or  even  "provincials,"  as  a  class.  Some  of 
the  fine  ladies  who  would  be  most  horrified  at  the  "  girl- 
sterousness  "  of  this  young  maiden  would  themselves 
smoke  their  cigarettes  in  much  worse  compan}-,  morally 
speaking,  than  she  ever  tolerated.  And,  so  far  as  man- 
ners are  concerned,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  worst 
cases  of  rudeness  and  ill-breeding  that  have  ever  come 
to  my  knowledge  have  not  occurred  in  the  ' '  rural  dis- 
tricts," or  among  the  lower  ten  thousand,  but  in  those 
circles  of  America  where  the  whole  aim  in  life  might 
seem  to  be  the  cultivation  of  its  elegances. 

And  what  confirms  me  in  the  fear  that  the  most 
profound  and  serious  types  of  this  disease  are  not  to 
be  found  in  the  wildcat  regions  is  the  fact  that  so  much 
of  it  is  transplanted  to  Europe,  among  those  who  have 
the  money  to  travel.  It  is  there  described  broadh^  as 
"Americanism;"  and,  so  surely  as  any  peculiarly 
shrill  group  is  heard  coming  through  a  European  pic- 
ture-gallery, it  is  straightway  classed  by  all  ol)servers 
as  belonging  to  the  great  Repul)lie.     If  the  observers 


174  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

are  enamoured  at  sight  with  the  beauty  of  the  young 
ladies  of  the  part}^,  they  excuse  the  voices  ; 

"  Strange  or  wild,  or  madly  gay, 
They  call  it  only  pretty  Fanny's  way." 

But  other  observers  are  more  apt  to  call  it  only  Colum- 
bia's way ;  and  if  the}^  had  ever  heard  the  word  '•  girl- 
sterousness,"  they  would  use  that  too. 

Emerson  says,  "  A  gentleman  makes  no  noise  ;  a  lady 
is  serene."  If  we  Americans  often  A'iolate  this  perfect 
maxim  of  good  manners,  it  is  something  that  America 
has,  at  least,  furnished  the  maxim.  And,  between  Em- 
erson and  '' girlsterousness,"  our  courteous  philosopher 
will  yet  carry  the  day. 


ABE    WOMEN  XATUBAL   ABISTOCBATS  ?      175 


XLVI. 

ARE   AVOMEX  XATURAL   ARISTOCRATS? 

A  clergyman's  wife  in  England  has  lately  set  on 
foot  a  reform  movement  in  respeet  to  dress  ;  and,  like 
many  English  reformers,  she  aims  chiefly  to  elevate  the 
morals  and  manners  of  the  lower  classes,  without  much 
reference  to  her  own  social  equals.  She  proposes  that 
''no  servant,  under  pain  of  dismissal,  shall  wear  flowers, 
feathers,  brooches,  buckles  or  clasps,  ear-rings,  lock- 
ets, neck-ribbons,  velvets,  kid  gloves,  parasols,  sashes, 
jackets,  or  trimming  of  any  kind  on  dresses,  and,  above 
all,  no  crinoline  ;  no  pads  to  be  worn,  or  frisettes,  or 
chignons,  or  hair-ribbons.  The  di'ess  is  to  be  gored 
and  made  just  to  touch  the  ground,  and  the  hair  to  be 
drawn  closely  to  the  head,  under  a  round  white  cap, 
without  trimming  of  any  kind.  The  same  system  of 
dress  is  recommended  for  Sunday-school  girls,  school- 
mistresses, church-singers,  and  the  lower  orders  gen- 
erally." 

The  remark  is  obvious,  that  in  this  couutr}^  such 
a  course  of  discipline  would  involve  the  mistress,  not 
the  maid,  in  the  ''pain  of  dismissal."  The  American 
clergyman  and  clergyman's  wife  who  should  even  "rec- 
ommend "  such  a  costume  to  a  school-mistress,  church- 
singer,  or  Sunday-school  girl,  —  to  say  nothing  of  the 
rest  of  the "  lower  orders," — would  soon  find  them- 


170  COMMOy   SEXSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

selves  without  teachers,  without  pupils,  without  a  choir, 
and  probably  without  a  parish.  It  is  a  comfort  to 
think  that  even  in  older  countries  there  is  less  and  less 
of  this  impertinent  interference :  the  costume  of  differ- 
ent ranks  is  being  more  and  more  assimilated  ;  and  the 
incidental  episode  of  a  few  liveries  in  our  cities  is  not 
enough  to  interfere  with  the  general  current.  Never 
yet,  to  m}^  knowledge,  have  I  seen  even  a  livery  worn 
by  a  white  native  American  ;  and  to  restrain  the  Sunda}^ 
bonnets  of  her  handmaidens,  what  lady  has  attempted? 

This  is  as  it  should  be.  The  Sunday  bonnet  of  the 
Irish  damsel  is  only  the  symbol  of  a  very  proper  effort 
to  obtain  her  share  of  all  social  advantages.  Long  may 
those  ribbons  wave  !  Meanwhile  I  think  the  fact  that 
it  is  easier  for  the  gentleman  of  the  house  to  control  the 
dress  of  his  groom  than  for  the  lady  to  dictate  that  of 
her  waiting-maid,  —  this  must  count  against  the  theory 
that  it  is  women  who  are  the  natural  aristocrats. 

Women  are  no  doubt  more  sensitive  than  men  upon 
matters  of  taste  and  breeding.  This  is  partly  from 
a  greater  average  fineness  of  natural  perception,  and 
partly  because  their  more  secluded  lives  give  them  less 
of  miscellaneous  contact  with  the  world.  If  Maud 
Muller  and  her  husband  had  gone  to  board  at  the  same 
boarding-house  with  the  Judge  and  his  wife,  that  lady 
might  have  held  aloof  from  the  rustic  bride,  simply 
from  inexperience  in  life,  and  not  knowing  just  how 
to  approach  her.  But  the  Judge,  who  might  have  been 
talking  politics  or  real  estate  with  the  3'oung  farmer 
on  the  doorsteps  that  morning,  would  certainly  find  it 
easier  to  deal  with  him  as  a  man  and  a  brother  at  the 
dinner- table.     From  these  different  causes  women  get 


ABE    WOMEX  XATCBAL   ABISTOCBATS  ?      Ii7 

the  credit  or  discredit  of  being  more  aristocratic  than 
men  are  ;  so  that  in  England  the  Tory  supporters  of 
female  suffrage  base  it  on  the  ground  that  these  new 
voters  at  least  will  be  conservative. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  women,  even  more 
than  men,  who  are  attracted  by  those  strong  qualities 
of  personal  character  which  are  alwaj's  the  antidote 
to  aristocracy.  No  bold  revolutionist  ever  defied  the 
established  conventionalisms  of  his  times  without  draw- 
ing his  strongest  support  from  women.  Poet  and  nov- 
elist love  to  depict  the  princess  as  won  b}-  the  outlaw, 
the  gypsy,  the  peasant.  Women  have  a  way  of  turning 
from  the  insipidities  and  proprieties  of  life  to  the  wooer 
who  has  the  stronger  hand  ;  from  the  silken  Darnley  to 
the  rude  Bothwell.  This  impulse  is  the  natural  correc- 
tive to  the  aristocratic  instincts  of  womanhood ;  and 
though  men  feel  it  less,  it  is  still,  even  among  them, 
one  of  the  supports  of  republican  institutions.  AVe  need 
to  keep  alwa^'s  balanced  between  the  two  influences  of 
refined  culture  and  of  native  force.  The  patrician  class, 
wherever  there  is  one,  is  pretty  sure  to  be  the  more 
refined  ;  the  plebeian  class,  the  more  energetic.  That 
woman  is  able  to  appreciate  both  elements,  is  proof 
that  she  is  quite  capable  of  doing  her  share  in  social 
and  political  life.  This  English  clergyman's  wife,  who 
devotes  her  soul  to  the  trimmings  and  gored  skirts  of 
the  lower  orders,  is  no  more  entitled  to  represent  her 
sex  than  are  those  ladies  who  give  their  whole  attention 
to  the  '-novel  and  intricate  bonnets"  advertised  this 
season  on  Broadway. 


178  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 


XL  VII. 

MRS.   BLANK'S  DAUGHTERS. 

Mrs.  Blank,  of  Far  AVest  —  let  us  not  dmw  her  from 
the  ''  sacred  privacy  of  woman  "  by  giving  the  name  or 
place  too  precisely  —  has  an  insurmountable  objection 
to  woman's  voting.  So  the  newspapers  say  :  and  this 
objection  is,  that  she  does  not  wish  her  daughters  to 
encounter  disreputable  characters  at  the  polls. 

It  is  a  laudable  desire,  to  keep  one's  daughters  from 
the  slightest  contact  with  such  persons.  But  how  does 
Mrs.  Blank  precisely  mean  to  accomplish  this  ?  Will 
she  shut  up  the  maidens  in  a  harem  ?  When  they  go 
out,  wiM  she  send  messengers  through  the  streets  to 
bid  people  hide  their  faces,  as  when  an  Oriental  queen 
is  passing?  Will  she  send  them  travelling  on  camels, 
veiled  by  yashmaks?  Will  she  prohibit  them  from 
being  so  much  as  seen  by  a  man,  except  when  a  phy- 
sician must  be  called  for  their  ailments,  and  Miss 
Blank  puts  her  arm  through  a  curtain,  in  order  that  he 
may  feel  her  pulse  and  know  no  more  ? 

AVho  is  Mrs.  Blank,  and  how  does  she  bring  up  her 
daughters  ?  Does  she  send  them  to  the  iX)st-office  ?  If 
so,  they  may  wait  a  half-hour  at  a  time  for  the  mail  to 
open,  and  be  elbowed  by  the  most  disreputable  charac- 
ters, waiting  at  their  side.  If  it  does  the  young  ladies 
no  harm  to  encounter  this  for  the  sake  of  getting  their 


MRS.    BLAXK\S  DAUGHTERS.  179 

letters  out,  will  it  harm  them  to  do  it  in  order  to  get 
their  ballots  in?  If  they  go  to  hear  Gough  lecture, 
they  may  be  kept  half  an  hour  at  the  door,  elbowed  by 
saint  and  sinner  indiscriminately.  If  it  is  worth  going 
through  this  to  hear  about  temperance,  why  not  to  vote 
about  it?  If  the}^  go  to  AVashington  to  the  President's 
inauguration,  they  may  stand  two  hours  with  Mary 
Magdalen  on  one  side  of  them  and  Judas  Iscariot 
on  the  other.  If  this  contact  is  rendered  harmless  by 
the  fact  that  they  are  receiving  political  information, 
will  it  hurt  them  to  stay  five  minutes  longer  in  order  to 
act  upon  the  knowledge  they  have  received  ? 

This  is  on  the  supposition  that  the  household  of 
Blank  are  plain,  practical  women,  unversed  in  the  vani- 
ties of  the  world.  If  they  belong  to  fashionable  circles, 
how  much  harder  to  keep  them  wholly  clear  of  disrepu- 
table contact !  Should  they,  for  instance,  visit  New- 
port, they  may  possibly  be  seen  at  the  Casino,  looking 
very  happy  as  they  revolve  rapidly  in  the  arms  of 
some  very  disreputable  characters  ;  they  will  be  seen 
in  the  surf,  attired  in  the  most  scanty  and  clinging 
drapery,  and  kindly  aided  to  preserve  their  balance  by 
the  devoted  attentions  of  the  same  companions.  Mrs. 
Blank,  meanwhile,  will  look  complacently  on,  with  tlie 
other  matrons :  they  are  not  supposed  to  know  the 
current  reputation  of  those  whom  their  daughters  meet 
"  in  societj' ;  "  and,  so  long  as  there  is  no  actual  harm 
done,  why  should  they  care?  Very  well;  but  why, 
then,  should  they  care  if  they  encounter  those  same 
disreputable  characters  when  they  go  to  drop  a  ballot 
in  the  ballot-box?  It  will  be  a  more  guarded  and 
distant  meeting:.    It  is  not  usual  to  dance  round-dances 


180  COMMOX   SEXSE  ABOUT    WOMEX. 

at  the  ward-room,  so  far  as  I  know,  or  to  bathe  in 
clinging  drapery  at  that  rather  dr}-  and  dust}^  resort. 
If  such  very  close  intimacies  are  all  right  under  the 
gas-light  or  at  the  beach,  why  should  there  be  poison 
in  merel}^  passing  a  disreputable  character  at  the  City 
Hall? 

On  the  whole,  the  prospects  of  Mrs.  Blank  are  not 
encouraging.  Should  she  consult  a  physician  for  her 
daughters,  he  may  be  secretly  or  openly  disreputable  ; 
should  she  call  in  a  clergyman,  he  may,  though  a 
bishop,  have  carnal  rather  than  spiritual  eyes.  If  Miss 
Blank  be  caught  in  a  shower,  she  may  take  refuge 
under  the  umln-ella  of  an  undesirable  acquaintance ; 
should  she  fall  on  the  ice,  the  woman  who  helps  to 
raise  her  may  have  sinned.  There  is  not  a  spot  in  any 
known  land  where  a  woman  can  live  in  absolute  seclu- 
sion from  all  contact  with  evil.  Should  the  Misses 
Blank  even  turn  Roman  Catholics,  and  take  to  a  con- 
vent, their  very  confessor  may  be  secretly  a  scoundrel ; 
and  they  may  be  glad  to  flee  for  refuge  to  the  busy, 
buying,  selling,  dancing,  voting  world  outside. 

No  :  Mrs.  Blank's  prayers  for  absolute  protection  will 
never  be  answered,  in  respect  to  her  daughters.  Why 
not-,  then,  find  a  better  model  for  prayer  in  that  made 
by  Jesus  for  his  disciples;  "I  pra}^  Thee,  not  that 
Thou  shouldst  take  them  out  of  the  world,  but  that 
Thou  shouldst  keep  them  from  the  evil."  A  woman 
was  made  for  something  nobler  in  the  world,  Mrs. 
Blank,  than  to  be  a  fragile  toy,  to  be  put  behind  a 
glass  case,  and  protected  from  contact.  It  is  not  her 
mission  to  be  hidden  away  from  all  life's  evil,  but 
bravely  to  work  that  the  world  may  be  reformed. 


THE  EUROPEAN  PLAN.  181 


XL  VIII. 

THE   EUROPEAX   PLAX. 

Every  mishap  among  American  women  brings  out 
renewed  suggestions  of  what  maybe  called  the  "Eu- 
ropean plan"  in  the  training  of  young  girls,  —  the 
plan,  that  is.  of  extreme  seclusion  and  helplessness. 
It  is  usually  forgotten,  in  these  suggestions,  that  not 
much  protection  is  really  given  anywhere  to  tliis  partic- 
ular class  as  a  whole.  Everywhere  in  Europe,  the 
restrictions  are  of  caste,  not  of  sex.  Even  in  Turkey, 
travellers  tell  us,  women  of  the  humbler  vocations  are 
not  much  secluded.  It  is  not  the  object  of  the  ''Eu- 
ropean plan,"  in  any  form,  to  protect  the  virtue  of 
young  women,  as  such,  but  only  of  young  ladies  ;  and 
the  protection  is  pretty  e^ectually  limited  to  that  order. 
Among  the  Portuguese,  in  the  island  of  Fayal,  I  found 
it  to  be  the  ambition  of  each  humble  famil}"  to  bring  up 
one  daugliter  in  a  sort  of  lady-like  seclusion  :  she  never 
went  into  the  street  alone,  or  without  a  hood  which  was 
equivalent  to  a  veil ;  she  was  taught  in-door  industries 
only  ;  she  was  constantly  under  the  eye  of  her  mother. 
But,  in  order  that  one  daughter  might  be  thus  protect- 
ed, all  the  other  daughters  were  allowed  to  go  alone,  day 
or  evening,  bare-headed  or  bare-footed,  by  the  loneliest 
mountain-paths,  to  bring  oranges  or  firewood  or  what- 
ever their  work  may  be  —  heedless  of  protection.     The 


182  C0M2I0X   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

safeguard  was  for  a  class  :  the  average  exposure  of 
young  womanhood  was  far  greater  than  with  us.  So  in 
London,  while  you  rarely  see  a  young  lady  alone  in 
the  streets,  the  housemaid  is  sent  on  errands  at  any  hour 
of  the  evening  with  a  freedom  at  which  our  city  domes- 
ties  would  quite  rebel ;  and  one  has  to  stay  but  a  short 
time  in  Paris  to  see  how  entirely  limited  to  a  class  is 
the  alleged  restraint  under  which  3'oung  French  girls 
are  said  to  be  kept. 

Again,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  whole  "Eu- 
ropean plan,"  so  far  as  it  is  applied  on  the  Continent 
of  Europe,  is  a  plan  based  upon  utter  distrust  and 
suspicion,  not  only  as  to  chastity,  but  as  to  all  other 
virtues.  It  is  applied  among  the  higher  classes  almost 
as  consistently  to  boys  as  to  girls.  In  every  school 
under  church  auspices,  it  is  the  French  theory  that  bo3'S 
are  never  to  be  left  un watched  for  a  moment ;  and  it  is 
as  steadily  assumed  that  girls  will  be  untruthful  if  left 
to  themselves,  as  that  they  will  do  every  other  wrong. 
This  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  seems  very  demoraliz- 
ing. "  Suspicion,"  said  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  "  is  the  way 
to  lose  that  which  we  fear  to  lose."  Readers  of  the 
Bronte  novels  will  remember  the  disgust  of  the  English 
pupils  and  teachers  in  French  schools  at  the  constant 
espionage  around  them  ;  and  I  have  more  than  once 
heard  3'oung  girls  who  had  been  trained  at  such  institu- 
tions say  that  it  was  a  wonder  if  they  had  any  truth- 
fulness left,  so  invariable  was  the  assumption  that  it 
was  the  nature  of  young  girls  to  lie.  I  cannot  imagine 
any  thing  less  likel}^  to  create  upright  and  noble  char- 
acter, in  man  or  woman,  than  the  systematic  application 
of  the  "  European  plan." 


I 


THE  EUROPEAN  PLAN.  183 

And  that  it  produces  just  the  results  that  might  be 
feared,  the  whole  tone  of  European  literature  proves. 
Foreigners,  no  doubt,  do  habitual  injustice  to  the  moral- 
ity of  French  households  ;  but  it  is  impossible  that 
fiction  can  utterly  misrepresent  the  community  which 
produces  and  reads  it.  AMien  one  thinks  of  the  utter 
lightness  of  tone  with  which  breaches,  both  of  truth 
and  chastity,  are  treated  even,  in  the  better  class  of 
French  novels  and  plays,  it  seems  absurd  to  deny  the 
correctness  of  the  picture.  Besides,  it  is  not  merely  a 
question  of  plays  and  novels.  Consider,  for  instance, 
the  contempt  with  which  Taine  treats  Thackeray  for 
representing  the  mother  of  Pendennis  as  suffering  ago- 
nies when  she  thinks  that  her  son  has  seduced  a  young 
girl,  his  social  inferior.  Thackeray  is  not  really  con- 
sidered a  model  of  elevated  tone,  as  to  such  matters, 
among  English  writers  ;  but  the  Frenchman  is  simply 
amazed  that  the  Englishman  should  describe  even  the 
saintliest  of  mothers  as  attaching  so  much  weight  to 
such  a  small  affair. 

An  able  newspaper  writer,  quoted  with  apparent  ap- 
proval by  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  praises  the  sup- 
posed foreign  method  for  the  "  habit  of  dependence  and 
deference  ' '  that  it  produces  ;  and  because  it  gives  to  a 
young  man  a  wife  whose  "  habit  of  deference  is  estab- 
lisiied."  But  it  must  be  remembered,  that,  where  this 
theory  is  established,  the  habit  of  deference  is  logically 
carried  much  farther  than  mere  conjugal  convenience 
would  take  it.  Its  natural  outcome  is  the  authority  of 
the  priest,  not  of  the  husband.  That  domination  of 
the  women  of  France  by  the  priesthood  which  forms 
to-day  the  chief  peril  of  tlie  republic, — which  is  the 


184         COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

strength  of  legitimism  and  imperialism  and  all  other 
conspiracies  against  the  liberty  of  the  French  people, 

—  is  only  the  visible  and  inevitable  result  of  this  dan- 
gerous docility. 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  best  preparation  for 
freedom  is  freedom  ;  and  that  no  young  girls  are  so 
poorly  prepared  for  American  life  as  those  whose  early 
years  are  passed  in  Europe.  The  worst  imprudences, 
the  most  unmaidenly  and  offensive  actions,  that  I  have 
ever  heard  of  in  decent  society,  have  been  on  the  part 
of  young  women  educated  in  Europe,  who  have  been 
launched  into  American  life  without  its  early  training, 

—  have  been  treated  as  children  until  they  suddenly 
awakened  to  the  freedom  of  women.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  remember  with  pleasure,  that  a  cultivated 
French  mother,  whose  daughter's  fine  qualities  were 
the  best  seal  of  her  motherhood,  once  told  me  that  the 
models  she  had  chosen  in  her  daughter's  training  were 
certain  families  of  American  young  ladies,  of  whom 
she  had,  through  peculiar  circumstances,  seen  much  in 
Paris. 


FEA  THEE  SES. "  185 


XLIX. 

"FEATHERSES." 

One  of  the  most  amusing  letters  ever  quoted  in  any 
book  is  that  given  in  Curzon's  ''Monasteries  of  the 
Levant,"  as  the  production  of  a  Turkish  sultana  who 
had  just  learned  English.     It  is  as  follows  :  — 

Note  FROM  Adile  Sultana,  the  betrothed  of  Abbas 
Pasha,  to  her  Armenian  Com3iissioner. 

Constantinople,  1844. 
My  Noble  Friend :  —  Here  are  the  featlierses  sent  my  soul, 
my  noble  friend,  are  there  no  other  featherses  leaved  in  the 
shop  beside  these  featherses  ?  and  these  featherses  remains, 
and  these  featherses  are  nkly.  They  are  very  dear,  who 
buyses  dheses  ?  And  my  noble  friend,  we  want  a  noat  from 
yorself ;  those  you  brought  last  tim,  those  you  sees  were  very 
beautiful;  we  had  searched;  my  soul,  I  want  featherses  again, 
of  those  featherses.  In  Kalada  there  is  plenty  of  feather. 
Whatever  bees,  I  only  want  beautiful  featherses;  I  want 
featherses  of  every  desolation  to-morrow. 

(Signed)  You  Know  Who. 

The  first  steps  in  culture  do  not,  then,  it  seems,  re- 
move from  the  feminine  soul  the  love  of  finery.  Xor 
do  the  later  steps  wholly  extinguish  it ;  for  did  not 
Grace  Greenwood  hear  the  learned  Mary  Somerville 
conferring  with  the  wise  Harriet  Martineau  as  to 
whether  a  certain  dress  should  be  dyed  to  match  a  cer- 
tain shawl  ?     Well  I  why  not  ?     Because  women  learn 


186  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

the  use  of  the  quill,  are  they  to  ignore  "  featherses  "  ? 
Because  they  learn  science,  must  they  unlearn  the  arts, 
and  above  all  t.he  art  of  being  beautiful?  If  men 
have  lost  it,  they  have  reason  to  regret  the  loss.  Let 
women  hold  to  it,  while  yQi  within  their  reach. 

Mrs.  Rachel  Rowland  of  New  Bedford,  much  prized 
and  trusted  as  a  public  speaker  among  Friends,  and  a 
model  of  taste  and  quiet  beauty  in  costume,  delighted 
the  young  girls  at  a  Newport  Yearly  Meeting,  a  few 
years  since,  by  boldly  declaring  that  she  thought  God 
meant  women  to  make  the  world  beautiful,  as  much  as 
flowers  and  butterflies,  and  that  there  was  no  sin  in 
tasteful  dress,  but  only  in  devoting  to  it  too  much 
money  or  too  much  time.  It  is  a  blessed  doctrme. 
The  utmost  extremes  of  dress,  the  love  of  colors,  of 
fabrics,  of  jewels,  of  "featherses,"  are,  after  all,  but 
an  efl'ort  after  the  beautiful.  The  reason  why  the 
beautiful  is  not  always  the  result  is  because  so  many 
women  are  ignorant  or  merely  imitative.  They  have 
no  sense  of  fitness  :  the  short  wear  what  belongs  to 
the  tall,  and  brunettes  sacrifice  their  natural  beauty  to 
look  like  blondes.  Or  thc}^  have  no  adaptation;  and 
even  an  emancipated  woman  may  show  a  disregard 
for  appropriateness,  as  where  a  fine  lady  sweeps  the 
streets,  or  a  fair  orator  the  platform,  with  a  silken  or 
velvet  train  which  accords  only  with  a  carpet  as  luxuri- 
ous as  itself.  What  is  inappropriate  is  ncA^er  beauti- 
ful. AYhat  is  merely  in  the  fashion  is  never  beautiful. 
But  who  does  not  know  some  woman  whose  taste  and 
training  are  so  perfect  that  fashion  becomes  to  her  a 
means  of  grace  instead  of  a  despot,  and  the  worst  ex- 
crescence that  can  be  prescribed  —  a  chignov,  a  hoop, 


*  *  FEA  THEE  SES. "  187 

a  panier  —  is  softened  into  something  so  becoming  that 
even  the  Parisian  bondage  seems  but  a  chain  of  roses? 

In  such  hands,  even  '' featherses  "  become  a  fine 
art,  not  a  matter  of  vanity.  Are  women  so  much 
more  vain  than  men  ?  No  doubt  they  talk  more  about 
their  dress,  for  there  is  much  more  to  talk  about ;  yet 
did  you  never  hear  the  men  of  fashion  discuss  boots 
and  hats  and  the  liveries  of  grooms?  A  good  friend 
of  mine,  a  shoemaker,  who  supplies  very  high  heels 
for  a  great  many  pretty  feet  on  Fifth  Avenue  in  New 
York,  declares  that  women  are  not  so  vain  of  their  feet 
as  men.  "A  man  who  thinks  he  has  a  handsome  foot," 
quoth  our  fashionable  Crispin,  "  is  apt  to  give  us  more 
trouble  than  any  lady  among  our  customers.  I  have 
noticed  this  for  twenty  years."  The  testimony  is  con- 
soling—  to  women. 

And  this  naturally  suggests  the  question.  What  is  to 
be  the  future  of  masculine  costume?  Is  the  present 
formlessness  and  gracelessness  and  monotony  of  hue 
to  last  forever,  as  suited  to  the  rough  needs  of  a  work- 
a-da}^  world?  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  differ- 
ence in  this  respect  between  the  dress  of  the  sexes  is  a 
very  recent  thing.  Till  within  a  century  or  so,  men 
dressed  as  picturesquely  as  women,  and  paid  as  minute 
attention  to  their  costume.  Even  the  fashions  in  armor 
varied  as  extensively  as  the  fashions  in  gowns.  One 
of  Henry  III.'s  courtiers,  Sir  J.  Arundel,  had  fifty-two 
complete  suits  of  cloth  of  gold.  No  satin,  no  velvet, 
was  too  elegant  for  those  who  sat  to  Copley  for  tlieir 
pictures.  In  Puritan  days  the  laws  could  hardly  be 
made  severe  enough  to  prevent  men  from  wearing  sil- 
ver-lace and  "  broad  bone-lace,"  and  shoulder-bands  of 


188  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

undue  width,  and  double  ruffs  and  "  immoderate  great 
breeches."  "What  seemed  to  the  Cavaliers  the  extreme 
of  stupid  sobriety  in  dress,  would  pass  now  for  the  most 
fantastic  array.  Fancy  Samuel  Pepys  going  to  a  wed- 
ding of  to-day  in  his  ' '  new  colored  silk  suit  and  coat 
trimmed  with  gold  buttons,  and  gold  broad  lace  round 
his  hands,  very  rich  and  fine."  It  would  give  to  the 
ceremony  the  aspect  of  a  fancy  ball ;  yet  how  much 
prettier  a  sight  is  a  fancy  ball  than  the  ordinary  enter- 
tainment of  the  period ! 

Within  the  last  few  years  the  rigor  of  masculine  cos- 
tume is  a  little  relaxed  ;  velvets  are  resuming  their  pic- 
turesque sway :  and,  instead  of  the  customary  suit  of 
solemn  black,  gentlemen  are  appearing  in  blue  and 
gold  editions  at  evening  parties.  Let  us  hope  that 
good  sense  and  taste  may  yet  meet  each  other,  for 
both  sexes  ;  that  men  may  borrow  for  their  dress  some 
womanly  taste,  women  some  masculine  sense ;  and 
society  may  again  witness  a  graceful  and  appropriate 
costume,  without  being  too  much  absorbed  in  "  f eath- 
erses." 


SOME  MAX-MILLiyjEBT.  189 


L. 

SOME  MAX-:\IILLIXERY. 

TTe  may  breathe  more  freely.  The  religious  pros- 
pects of  America  brighten.  Our  dealers  have  received 
the  "Catalogue  of  Clerical  Vestments  and  Improved 
Chm-ch  Ornaments  manufactured  by  Simon  Jeune,  34 
Rue  de  Clery,  Paris." 

T\^hy  are  we  not  a  nation  of  saints?  Plainly,  be- 
cause the  church-apparatus  has  hitherto  been  so  very 
deficient.  Religion  has  been,  so  to  speak,  naked.  The 
dry-goods  stores,  supplying  only  the  laity,  have  left  the 
clergy  unclothed.  In  what  readj^-made-clothing  store 
can  you  find  any  thing  like  a  proper  alb  ?  Ask  your 
tailor,  if  you  dare,  for  a  chasuble.  At  Stewart's  shop 
New  Yorkers  boast  that  3'ou  can  buy  au}^  thing  ;  but 
fancy  a  respectable  citizen  entering  those  marble  port- 
als, and  demanding  a  cope  or  a  dalmatic !  As  for 
an  ombrellino,  or  an  antepcndium,  you  might  as  well 
attempt  to  go  buffalo-hunting  in  Broadway.  In  that 
case  you  would  at  least  find  the  dried  skin  of  the  ani- 
mal ;  but  we  doubt  if  there  is  to  be  found  on  sale  any 
thing  nearer  an  ombrellino  than  a  lady's  parasol.  They 
order  this  thing  otherwise  in  France. 

Mr.  Simon  Jeune  provides  every  one  of  these  simple 
luxuries.  Not  a  device  by  which  a  rich  man  may  enter 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,   but  he  has  it  at  his  fiuo^ers' 


190  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 

ends.  None  of  j^our  cheap  salvations  mar  the  dignity 
of  34  Rue  de  Cleiy.  "We  do  not  manufacture  these 
articles  at  a  low  price,"  he  calml}^  announces.  There 
is  no  limit  in  the  other  direction.  You  can  lead  souls 
to  heaven  in  a  robe  worth  twenty-five  guineas  ;  but,  if 
3^ou  insist  on  parsimony  in  yowv  piety,  3^ou  must  patron- 
ize some  other  establishment. 

Yet  who  that  reads  this  catalogue,  and  revels  for  a 
half-hour  amid  its  gold  and  jewels,  would  care  to  be 
parsimonious?  What  is  money  worth,  except  as  a 
means  of  putting  one's  favorite  minister  into  a  chasuble 
"  in  gold  cloth  with  glazed  friz  ground,  double  superior 
quality"?  Since  the  Christian  must  at  any  rate  bear 
his  cross,  is  it  not  a  satisfaction  to  have  it  "on  a  gold 
ground,  richly  worked  in  gold  and  silver"?  If  there 
is  no  true  religion  without  a  cope,  is  it  not  well  that  its 
' '  hood  and  orf  raies  ' '  should  be  ' '  surrounded  with 
glazed  gold-columned  galloon  "  ?  And,  as  death  must 
come  at  any  rate,  is  it  not  something  that  your  pall  may 
bear  "a  handsome  design  of  silver  tears  in  emboss  in 
the  centre  of  the  cross,"  price  only  six  guineas? 

Time  would  fail  to  tell  of  the  banners  and  the  dais,  the 
altar-cloths  and  frontals,  the  pastoral  stoles  and  bene- 
diction-scarfs, the  p3^xes  and  chalices,  and,  in  short,  all 
dear  delights  of  consecrated  souls.  This  saintly  uphol- 
sterer makes  as  many  "fresh  sacrifices,"  it  would  ap- 
pear, as  any  other  retailer  ;  but,  as  this  does  not  pre- 
vent him  from  pricing  a  dais  as  high  as  four  hundred 
pounds  sterling,  there  is  no  danger  of  the  purchasers 
finding  any  thing  cheap  enough  to  be  really  discreditable. 
And  the  goods  are  all  warranted  to  be  as  indestructi- 
ble as  the  lowly  virtues  they  symbolize. 


S02fE  MAN-MILLINEBY.  191 

M.  Jeune  positively  announces  that  he  ' '  supplies 
every  article  connected  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church."  Perhaps  he  reserves  the  faith,  hope,  and 
charity  for  the  next  catalogue,  as  they  do  not  appear 
largely  in  this.  In  other  respects,  reading  this  cata- 
logue is  as  good  as  a  seat  in  the  most  fashionable  church, 
and  leaves  much  the  same  impression.  It  is  especially 
useful  for  summer-time,  when  one  may  wander  in  the 
country,  to  the  peril  of  one's  soul,  and  may  consider 
the  lilies  a  great  deal  too  much,  and  may  come  to 
thinking  religion  a  thing  obtainable  on  cheap  terms, 
after  all.  This  would  not  do  for  M.  Jeune's  business  : 
let  us  return  to  the  realities  of  time  and  eternity,  and 
consider  this  ' '  embroidered  glory  of  spangles  and  prul, ' ' 
—  whatever  prul  may  be. 

But  can  it,  after  all,  be  possible  that  these  gorgeous 
garments  are  to  be  worn  by  men  only,  and  that  those 
same  men  will  sometimes  treat  it  as  a  reproach  to 
women  that  they  are  fond  of  dress  ? 


192  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LI. 

SUBLIME  PRINCES   IX  DISTRESS. 

In  looking  over  some  miscellaneous  papers  which 
came,  the  other  day,  into  my  hands,  I  found  among 
them  a  newspaper  scrap,  expressing  certain  criticisms 
familiar  to  the  inquiring  mind.  It  stated  the  predomi- 
nant attribute  of  women  to  be  frivolity ;  an  inordinate 
love  of  show,  display,  rank,  title,  dress  ;  a  habit  of  ab- 
sorption in  the  petty  details  of  these  follies,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  all  serious  thought  and  purpose.  In  reading 
this  lucubration,  one  was  led  to  suppose  that  the  whole 
aim  of  all  women  was  to  meet  in  little  circles  where 
they  could  wear  costly  attire,  call  themselves  by  fine 
names,  and,  in  the  concise  Italian  phrase,  "peacock 
themselves  ' '  generally. 

But  there  happened  to  be  among  the  same  papers 
another  class  of  documents  which  tended  to  unsettle 
the  mind  a  little  on  these  topics.  These  documents 
were  in  print,  and  were  not  marked  as  private,  or 
addressed  to  any  particular  name,  so  that  there  can  be 
no  harm  in  reprinting  one  of  them,  suppressing,  how- 
ever, all  reference  to  particular  persons  or  places,  lest  I 
should  be  innocently  betraying  some  awful  secret.  The 
paper  affording  most  information  was  as  follows,  the 

dashes  of  omission  ( )  being  mine,  but  all  the  rest 

being  given  verbatim :  — 


SUBLIME  PRIXCES   IX  DISTRESS. 


193 


Lux  e  tenebris," 

COXSISTORY. 


S.  P.  K.  S. 


Non  nobis 
Domine  non 
nobis,   sed 
nomini  tuo 
da  gloriam 


32° 


Sublime  Prince  : 

A  stated  rendezvous  of 


Consistory,  A.  A.  S.  Rite, 


will  be  held  on  the  IStli  day  of  the  month  Adar,  A,  H.  5640, 

in  Hall,  under  the  c.  c.  of  the   3 ,  near  the  B.  B.  at 

Five  o'clock  P.M. 


Per  order  of 


111.  Com.  in  Chief. 


111.  Grand  Secretary. 


The  object  of  this  meeting  is  thus  stated  :  "  Work  : 
the  grade  of  Knight  Kadosh,  the  30th,  will  be  worked 
in  full  at  this  Rendezvous."  And  it  appears  that  this 
work  must  have  something  of  a  military  character  ;  for 
it  seems  from  another  circular,  which  I  will  not  quote 
in  full,  that  the  purpose  of  the  rendezvous  can  be  much 
better  carried  out  if  the  members  will  provide  themselves 
with  a  costly  uniform,  including  a  sword  and  other 
equipments.  Yet  it  would  also  appear  that  the  expenses 
of  this  organization,  apart  from  the  uniform,  are  so 
great  as  to  call  forth  the  following  notice :  — 


'•Delinquents.  — The  Finance  Committee  recommend  the 
discharge  from  Membership  of  the  following  Sublime  Princes, 
for  non-payment  of  dues,  they  having  failed  to  make  any  satis- 
factory reply  to  repeated  notices  of  their  indebtedness."  [Then 
follows  a  list  of  names  and  amounts  varying  from  $17  to  $23.] 


194  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

One  of  the  most  brilliant  of  recent  French  novels, 
Duudet's  "  Les  Rois  en  Exil,"  laj's  its  whole  plot  among 
the  forlorn  class  of  dethroned  sovereigns  in  Paris  ;  but 
really  their  sorrows  do  not  touch  an  American  heart 
so  deeply  as  this  black-list.  Here  are  nearly  twenty 
Princes  on  our  own  soil  who  are  publich^  exposed  in  a 
single  circular  as  refusing,  after  ''repeated  notices  of 
their  indebtedness,"  even  to  reply  satisfactorily.  AYhat 
pleasure  can  there  be  in  the  most  attractive  • '  rendez- 
vous," what  joy  in  the  most  absorbing  "  work,"  when 
one  thinks  of  all  these  fallen  Sublime  Princes  wander- 
ing, like  Milton's  angels,  into  outer  darkness?  I  almost 
blush  to  own  that  I  recognize  among  the  names  of  these 
outcasts  one  or  two  acquaintances  of  m}^  own,  who 
certainly  passed  for  honest  men  before  they  became 
princes. 

But  the  most  interesting  question  for  women  to  con- 
sider is  this  :  Who  conducts  this  picturesque  consistory, 
with  its  rites,  its  titles,  and  its  uniforms?  Which  sex 
is  it  that'  makes  up  this  society,  and  twenty  other 
societies  so  absorbing  in  theu'  ' '  work  ' '  that  some  wor- 
thy persons  have  a  "  society  "  for  almost  every  evening 
in  the  week  ?  Is  it  the  sex  which  is  alleged  to  be  frivo- 
lous, dressy,  and  eager  for  rank  and  title  ?  Or  is  it  the 
grave  sex,  the  serious  and  hard-working  sex,  the  "  noble 
sex,"  le  sexe  noble,  as  some  of  the  French  grammars 
call  it?  No  doubt  there  is  under  all  this  display  and 
formality,  in  this  >'  consistory,"  as  in  most  similar  or- 
ganizations, a  great  deal  of  mutual  help  and  friendli- 
ness. But  so  there  is  under  even  the  seeming  frivoli- 
ties of  women :  the  majority  of  fashionable  women 
have  good  hearts,   and  do  good.      If  substantial  and 


SUBLIME  PBINCES   IN  DISTRESS.  195 

practical  men  like  to  cover  even  their  benevolent  organ- 
izations with  something  of  show  and  display,  and  to 
'•  peacock  themselves  "  a  little,  why  should  not  women 
be  permitted  the  same  privilege?  Surely  Sublime 
Princes  should  stand  by  their  order,  and  not  look  with 
disdain  on  those  who  would  like  to  be  Sublime  Prin- 
cesses if  they  only  could. 


EDUCATION. 


"!Movet  me  ingens  scientiarum  admiratio,  sen  legis  com- 
munis ffiquitas,  ut  in  nostro  sexu,  rarum  non  esse  feram,  id 
quod  omnium  votis  dignissimum  est.  IS'am  cum  sapientia 
tantum  generis  liumani  ornamentum  sit,  ut  ad  omnes  et 
singulos  (quoad  quidem  per  sortem  cujusque  liceat)  extendi 
jure  debeat,  non  vidi,  cur  virgini,  in  qua  excolendi  sese  or- 
nandique  sedulitatem  admittimus,  non  conveniat  mundus  liic 
omnium  longe  pulclierrimus." — Ax^'^  Maei^  1.  Schurman 
Epistol^.     (1638.) 

"A  great  reverence  for  knowledge  and  the  natural  sense  of 
justice  urge  me  to  encourage  in  my  own  sex  that  which  is  most 
worthy  the  aspirations  of  all.  For,  since  wisdom  is  so  great  an 
ornament  of  the  human  race  that  it  should  of  right  be  ex- 
tended (so  far  as  practicable)  to  each  and  every  one,  I  did  not 
see  why  this  fairest  of  ornaments  should  not  be  appropriate 
for  the  maiden,  to  whom  we  permit  all  diligence  in  the  decora- 
tion and  adornment  of  herself." 


experiments:'  199 


LII. 

"EXPERIMENTS." 

WiiY  is  it,  that,  whenever  aii}^  thing  is  done  for  women 
in  the  way  of  education,  it  is  called  "  an  experiment," 
—  something  that  is  to  be  long  considered,  stoutly  op- 
posed, grudgingly  yielded,  and  dubiously  watched,  — 
while,  if  the  same  thing  is  done  for  men,  its  desirable- 
ness is  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  thing  is 
done?  Thus,  when  Harvard  College  was  founded,  it 
was  not  regarded  as  an  experiment,  but  as  an  institu- 
tion. The  "General  Court,"  in  1636,  "agreed  to 
give  400?.  towards  a  schoale  or  colledge,"  and  the 
affair  was  settled.  Every  subsequent  step  in  the  ex- 
panding of  educational  opportunities  for  3^oung  men 
has  gone  in  the  same  way.  But  when  there  seems  a 
chance  of  extending,  however  irregularly,  some  of  the 
same  collegiate  advantages  to  women,  I  observe  that 
the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
in  all  good  faith,  speak  of  the  measure  as  an  "  experi- 
ment." 

It  seems  to  me  no  more  of  an  ' '  experiment ' '  than 
when  a  boy  who  has  hitherto  eaten  up  his  whole  apple 
becomes  a  little  touched  with  a  sense  of  justice,  and 
finally  decides  to  offer  his  sister  the  smaller  half.  If 
he  has  ever  regarded  that  offer  as  an  experiment, 
the  first  actual  trial  will  put  the  result  into  the  list  of 


200  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

certainties  ;  and  it  will  become  an  axiom  in  his  mind 
that  girls  like  apples.  AYhatei^er  may  be  said  about  the 
position  of  women  in  law  and  society,  it  is  clear  that 
their  educational  disadvantages  have  been  a  prolonged 
disgrace  to  the  other  sex,  and  one  for  which  women 
themselves  are  in  no  way  accountable.  When  Fran- 
9oise  de  Saintonges,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  wished 
to  establish  girls'  schools  in  France,  she  was  hooted  in 
the  streets,  and  her  father  called  together  four  doctors 
of  law  to  decide  whether  she  was  possessed  of  a  devU 
in  planning  to  teach  women,  —  '-^ pour  s\issurer  qu'iii- 
struire  cles  femmes  n'etait  pas  un  oeuvre  du  demon.' ^ 
From  that  day  to  this,  we  haA'c  seen  women  almost 
always  more  ready  to  be  taught  than  was  any  one  else 
to  teach  them.  Talk  as  you  please  about  their  wishing 
or  not  wishing  to  vote  :  they  have  certainly  wished  for 
instruction,  and  have  had  it  doled  out  to  them  almost 
as  grudgingly  as  if  it  were  the  ballot  itself. 

Consider  the  educational  history  of  Massachusetts, 
for  instance.  The  wife  of  President  John  Adams  was 
born  in  1744  ;  and  she  says  of  her  youth  that  '^  female 
education,  in  the  best  families,  went  no  farther  than 
writing  and  arithmetic."  Barry  tells  us  in  his  Histor}^ 
of  Massachusetts,  that  the  public  education  was  first 
provided  for  boys  only  ;  '•  but  light  soon  broke  in,  and 
girls  were  allowed  to  attend  the  public  schools  two 
hours  a  day."-'  It  appears  from  President  Quincy's 
"  Municipal  History  of  Boston,"  ^  that  from  1790  girls 
were  there  admitted  to  such  schools,  but  during  the 
summer  months  only,  when  there  were  not  boys  enough 
to  fill  them,  —  from  April  20  to  Oct.  20  of  each  year. 

1  ni.,  323.  2  p.  21. 


I 


' '  EXPEBniEXTS. ' '  201 

This  lasted  until  1822,  when  Boston  became  a  city. 
Four  years  after,  an  attempt  was  made  to  establish 
a  high  school  for  girls,  which  was  not,  however,  to 
teach  Latin  and  Greek.  It  had,  in  the  words  of  the 
school  committee  of  1854,  "an  alarming  success;" 
and  the  school  was  abolished  after  eighteen  months' 
trial,  because  the  girls  crowded  into  it ;  and  as  Mr. 
Quincy,  with  exquisite  simplicity,  records,  "  not  one 
voluntarily  quitted  it,  and  there  was  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  any  one  admitted  to  the  school  would 
voluntarily  quit  for  the  whole  three  years,  except  in 
case  of  marriage  I  ' ' 

How  amusing  seems  it  now  to  read  of  such  an 
"experiment"  as  this,  abandoned  only  because  of 
its  overwhelming  success  !  How  absurd  now  seem  the 
discussions  of  a  few  years  ago  !  —  the  doubts  whether 
young  women  really  desired  higher  education,  whether 
they  were  capable  of  it,  whether  their  health  would 
bear  it,  whether  their  parents  would  permit  it.  The 
address  I  gave  before  the  Social  Science  Association 
on  this  subject,  at  Boston,  May  14,  1873,  now  seems 
to  me  such  a  collection  of  platitudes  that  I  hardly  see 
how  I  dared  come  before  an  intelligent  audience  with 
such  needless  reasonings.  It  is  as  if  I  had  soberly 
labored  to  prove  that  two  and  two  make  four,  or  that 
ginger  is  "hot  i'  the  mouth."  Yet  the  subsequent 
discussion  in  that  meeting  showed  that  around  even 
these  harmless  and  commonplace  propositions  the  battle 
of  debate  could  rage  hot ;  and  it  really  seemed  as  if 
even  to  teach  women  the  alphabet  ought  still  to  be  men- 
tioned as  "  a  promising  experiment."  Now,  with  the 
successes  before  us  of  Vassar  and  AVellesley  and  Smith 


202  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

Colleges,  of  Michigan  and  Cornell  and  Boston  Univer- 
sities ;  with  the  spectacle  at  Cambridge  of  young  women 
actuall_y  reading  Plato  ''  at  sight"  with  Professor  Good- 
win, —  it  surely  seems  as  if  the  higher  education  of 
women  might  be  considered  quite  beyond  the  stage 
of  experiment,  and  might  henceforth  be  provided  for 
in  the  same  common-sense  and  matter-of-course  way 
w^hich  we  provide  for  the  education  of  young  men. 

And,  if  this  point  is  already  reached  in  education, 
how  long  before  it  will  also  be  reached  in  political  life, 
and  women's  voting  be  viewed  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  a  thing  no  longer  experimental  ? 


INTELLECTUAL    CIXDEEELLAS.  203 


LIII. 
IXTELLECTUAL   CI^^'DERELLAS. 

"VThex,  some  thirty  years  ago,  the  extraordinary 
yoiiDg  mathematician,  Truman  Henry  Safford,  first 
attracted  tlie  attention  .of  New  England  by  his  rare 
powers,  I  well  remember  the  pains  that  were  taken  to 
place  him  under  instruction  by  the  ablest  Harvard  pro- 
fessors :  the  greater  his  abilities,  the  more  needful  that 
he  should  have  careful  and  symmetrical  training.  The 
men  of  science  did  not  say,  "  Stand  off  !  let  him  alone  ! 
let  him  strive  patiently  until  he  has  achieved  something 
positively  valuable,  and  he  may  be  sure  of  prompt  and 
generous  recognition  —  when  he  is  fifty  years  old. ' '  If 
such  a  course  would  have  been  mistaken  and  ungenerous 
if  applied  to  Professor  Safford,  why  is  it  not  something 
to  be  regretted  that  it  was  applied  to  3Irs.  Somerville? 
In  her  case,  the  mischief  was  done  :  she  was,  happily, 
strong  enough  to  bear  it ;  but,  as  the  English  critics 
say,  we  never  shall  know  what  science  has  lost  by  it. 
"SVe  can  do  nothing  for  her  now  ;  but  we  could  do  some- 
thing for  future  women  like  her,  by  pointing  this  ob- 
vious moral  for  their  benefit,  instead  of  being  content 
with  a  mere  tardy  recognition  of  success,  after  a  woman 
has  expended  half  a  century  in  struggle. 

It  is  commonly  considered  to  be  a  step  forward  in 
civilization,  that  whereas  ancient  and  barbarous  nations 


204  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   W03IEN. 

exposed  children  to  special  hardships,  in  order  to  kill 
off  the  weak  and  toughen  the  strong,  modern  nations 
aim  to  rear  all  alike  carefully,  without  either  sacrificing 
or  enfeebling.  If  we  apply  this  to  muscle,  why  not  to 
mind?  and,  if  to  men's  minds,  why  not  to  women's? 
Why  use  for  men's  intellects,  which  are  claimed  to  be 
stronger,  the  forcing  process, — offering,  for  instance, 
many  thousand  dollars  a  year  in  gratuities  at  Harvard 
College,  that  young  men  may  be  induced  to  come  and 
learn, — ^and  only  withhold  assistance  from  the  weaker 
minds  of  women  ?  A  little  schoolgirl  once  told  me  that 
she  did  not  object  to  her  teacher's  showing  partiality, 
but  thought  she  "  ought  to  show  partiality  to  all  alike." 
If  all  our  university  systems  are  wrong,  and  the  proper 
diet  for  mathematical  genius  consists  of  fifty  ^^ears' 
snubbing,  let  us  employ  it,  by  all  means  ;  but  let  it  be 
applied  to  both  sexes. 

That  it  is  the  duty  of  women,  even  under  disadvan- 
tageous circumstances,  to  prove  their  purpose  by  labor, 
to  "  verify  their  credentials,"  is  true  enough  ;  but  this 
moral  is  only  part  of  the  moral  of  Mrs.  Somerville's 
book,  and  is  cruelly  incomplete  without  the  other  half. 
What  a  garden  of  roses  was  Mrs.  Somerville's  life, 
according  to  some  comfortable  critics!  ''All  that  for 
which  too  mau}^  women  nowadays  are  content  to  sit 
and  whine,  or  fitfulh^  and  carelessly  struggle,  came 
naturally  and  quietly  to  ISIrs.  Somerville.  And  the 
reason  was,  that  she  never  asked  for  any  thing  until 
she  had  earned  it ;  or,  rather,  she  never  asked  at  all, 
but  was  content  to  earn."  Naturally  and  quietly! 
You  might  as  well  say  that  Garrison  fought  slavery 
"  quietly,"  or  that  Frederick  Douglass's  escape  came  to 


INTELLECTUAL    CINDEBELLAS.  205 

him  ' '  naturally. ' '  Torn  to  the  book  itself,  and  see 
with  what  strong,  though  never  bitter,  feeling,  the  au- 
thor looks  back  upon  her  hard  struggle. 

"I  was  intensely  ambitious  to  excel  in  something;  for  I  felt 
in  my  own  breasL  that  Avomen  were  capable  of  taking  a  higher 
place  in  creation  than  that  assigned  them  in  my  early  days, 
which  was  very  low"  (p.  60).  *'Nor  .  .  .  should  I  have  had 
courage  to  ask  any  of  them  a  question,  for  I  should  have  been 
laughed  at.  I  was  often  very  sad  and  forlorn ;  not  a  hand  held 
out  to  help  me"  (p.  47).  "  My  father  came  home  for  a  short 
time,  and,  somehow  or  other  finding  out  what  I  was  about, 
said  to  my  mother,  '  Peg,  we  must  put  a  stop  to  this,  or  we  shall 
have  Mary  in  a  strait-jacket  one  of  these*  days  '  "  (p.  54).  "I 
continued  my  mathematical  and  other  pursuits,  but  under 
great  disadvantages ;  for,  although  my  husband  did  not  prevent 
me  from  studying,  I  met  with  no  sympathy  whatever  from 
him,  as  he  had  a  very  low  opinion  of  the  capacity  of  my  sex, 
and  had  neither  knowledge  of  nor  interest  in  science  of  any 
kind''  (p.  57).  "I  was  considered  eccentric  and  foolish;  and 
my  conduct  was  highly  disapproved  of  by  many,  especially  by 
some  members  of  my  own  family"  (p.  80).  "A  man  can  al- 
ways command  his  time  under  the  plea  of  business :  a  woman 
is  not  allowed  any  such  excuse"  {]}.  164).     And  so  on. 

At  last  in  1831 — Mrs.  Somerville  being  then  fifty- 
one  —  her  work  on  ' '  The  Mechanism  of  the  Heavens  ' ' 
appeared.  Then  came  universal  recognition,  generous 
if  not  prompt,  a  tard}"  acknowledgment.  '^Our  rela- 
tions," she  says,  ''and  others  who  had  so  severely 
criticised  and  ridiculed  me,  astonished  at  my  success, 
were  now  loud  in  m}'^  praise."  ^  No  doubt.  So  were, 
probably,  Cinderella's  sisters  loud  in  her  praise,  when 
the  prince  at  last  took  her  from  the  chimney-corner, 
and  married  her.     They  had  kept  for  themselves,  to  be 

1  p.  170. 


206  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

sure,  as  long  as  they  could,  the  delights  and  opportuni- 
ties of  life  ;  while  she  had  taken  the  place  assigned  her 
in  her  early  days,  —  "which  was  ver}'  low,"  as  Mrs. 
Somerville  says.  But,  for  all  that,  the}^  were  very  kind 
to  her  in  the  days  of  her  prosperity ;  and  no  doubt 
packed  their  little  trunks,  and  came  to  visit  their  dear 
sister  at  the  palace,  as  often  as  she  could  wish.  And, 
doubtless,  the  Fairyland  Monthly  of  that  day,  when  it 
came  to  review  Cinderella's  "Personal  Recollections," 
pointed  out,  that,  as  soon  as  that  distinguished  lady  had 
"  achieved  something  positively  valuable,"  she  received 
"  prompt  and  generous  recognition." 


FOBEIGN  EDUCATION.  207 


LIV. 
FOREIGX  EDUCATIOX. 

There  is  a  fashionable  phrase  which  always  awakens 
my  inward  protest,  —  "  the  advantages  of  foreign  edu- 
cation." Every  summer  brings  within  my  view  a  large 
class  of  people  who  have  perhaps  spent  their  youth  in 
Europe,  and  then  have  taken  Europe  for  their  wedding- 
tour  ;  and  then,  after  a  year  or  two  at  home,  have  found 
it  an  excellent  reason  for  going  abroad  again  ' '  to  give 
the  children  the  advantage  of  foreign  education,  you 
know."  And,  as  it  is  in  regard  to  girls  that  this  ad- 
vantage is  especially  claimed,  it  is  in  respect  to  them 
that  I  wish  to  speak. 

In  some  ways,  undoubtedly,  the  early  foreign  train- 
ing offers  an  advantage.  It  is  a  thing  of  very  great 
convenience  to  have  the  easy  colloquial  command  of 
one  or  two  languages  beside  one's  own ;  and  this  can 
no  doubt  be  obtained  far  more  readily  by  a  few  years  of 
early  life  abroad  than  by  any  method  employed  in  later 
years  at  home.  There  are  also  some  unquestionable 
advantages  in  respect  to  music,  art,  and  European 
geography  and  history.  The  trouble  is,  that,  when  we 
have  enumerated  these  advantages,  we  have  mentioned 
aU. 

And,  as  a  further  trouble,  it  comes  about  that  these 
things,  being  all  that  are  better  learned  in  Eui'ope,  are 


208  COMMOy   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEX. 

easily  assumed,  by  what  may  be  called  our  European- 
ized  classes,  to  he  all  that  are  worth  learning,  espe- 
cially for  girls.  When,  in  such  circles,  you  hear  of 
a  3^oung  lady  as  '' splendidly  educated,"  it  commonly 
turns  out  that  she  speaks  several  languages  admirably, 
and  plays  well  on  the  piano,  or  sketches  well.  It  is 
not  needful  for  such  an  indorsement  that  she  should 
have  the  slightest  knowledge  of  mathematics,  of  logic, 
of  rhetoric,  of  metaphysics,  of  political  economy,  of 
physiology,  of  any  branch  of  natural  science,  or  of  any 
language,  or  literature,  or  histor}^,  except  those  of 
modern  Europe.  All  these  missing  branches  she  would 
have  been  far  more  likely  to  study,  if  she  had  never 
been  abroad  :  all  these,  or  a  suflicient  number  of  them, 
she  would  have  been  pretty  sure  to  study  at  a  first-class 
American  "academy"  or  high  school.  But  all  these 
she  is  almost  sure  to  have  missed  in  Europe,  —  missed 
them  so  thoroughly,  indeed,  that  she  is  likely  to  regard 
with  suspicion  any  one  who  knows  any  thing  about 
them,  as  being  "  awfully  learned." 

Yet  it  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  the  studies 
thus  omitted  by  girls  taught  in  Europe  are  the  studies 
which  train  the  intellect.  That  a  girl  should  know  her 
own  powers  of  body  and  mind,  should  know  how  to 
observe,  how  to  combine,  how  to  think  ;  that  she  should 
know  the  history  and  literature  of  the  world  at  large, 
and  in  particular  of  the  countr}^  in  which  she  is  to  live, 
—  this  is  certainly  more  important  than  that  she  should 
be  able  to  speak  two  or  three  languages  as  well  as  a 
European  courier,  aud  should  have  nothing  to  say  in 
any  of  them. 

A  very  few  persons  I  have  known  who  contrived, 


FOREIGN  EDUCATION.  209 

while  living  abroad,  to  keep  a  home  atmosphere  round 
their  children,  and  who,  by  great  personal  effort,  suc- 
ceeded in  giving  to  their  girls  that  solid  early  training 
which  is  to  be  had  in  ever}^  high  school  in  this  country, 
but  is  only  to  be  olitained  l)y  personal  effort,  and  under 
great  disadvantages,  in  Europe.  AViser  still,  in  my 
judgment,  were  those  who  trusted  America  for  the 
main  training,  but  contrived  earl}^  to  secure  for  their 
children  the  needful  year  or  two  of  foreign  life,  for 
the  learning  of  languages  alone.  Perhaps  we  exagger- 
ate, too,  the  absolute  uecessit}^  of  foreign  study,  even 
for  modern  languages.  The  Russians,  who  are  the  best 
linguists  in  Europe,  are  not  in  the  habit  of  expatriating 
themselves  for  that  purpose ;  and  perhaps  we  have 
something  to  learn  from  them  in  this  direction,  as  well 
as  in  the  line  of  Professor  Runkle's  machine-shops. 


210  COMMON  SEN  16 E  ABOUT   WOMEN, 


LV. 

TEACHING   THE   TEACHERS. 

Cotton  Mather  saj's  of  his  father,  Increase  Mather, 
that,  when  he  became  president  of  Harvard  College,  it 
was  from  the  desire  to  teach  those  who  were  to  teach 
others,  or,  as  he  expresses  it,  not  to  shape  the  building 
but  the  builders,  —  non  lapicles  dolare  sed  arcJiitectos.  It 
is  curious  to  see  that  women  are  admitted  more  readily 
to  this  higher  work  than  to  the  lower.  Thus  I  know 
a  lady  who  teaches  elocution  professionally,  and  has 
clerical  pupils  among  others.  One  of  these  assures 
me  that  he  finds  his  power  and  influence  in  the  pulpit 
much  increased  through  her  instruction.  Yet  there  is 
scarcely  a  denomination  which  would  admit  her  into  the 
pulpit :  she  can  direct  the  builders,  but  can  take  no 
share  in  the  building. 

It  sometimes  occurred  to  me,  when  a  member  of  the 
legislature  of  Massachusetts,  that  the  little  I  knew  of 
political  econom}^  was  mainly  due  to  the  assiduous  read- 
ing, in  childhood,  of  Miss  Martineau's  stories  founded 
on  that  science.  Yet  it  would  have  been  thought  some- 
thing very  astoundihg,  were  some  such  woman  to  have 
a  seat  in  that  legislature.  So  I  have  seen  classes  of 
young  men  and  maidens,  in  a  high  school,  reciting 
political  econoni}^  out  of  Mrs.  Fawcett's  excellent  text- 
book, —  and  sometimes  reciting  it  to  a  woman  ;  and  yet, 


TEACIIIXG    THE   TEACHERS.  211 

should  any  one  of  these  boys  ever  become  a  member  of 
' '  the  Great  and  General  Court, ' '  as  the  legislature  is 
called  in  Massachusetts,  he  could  not  even  invite  this 
teacher,  or  Mrs.  Fawcett  herself,  to  sit  beside  him  and 
aid  him  with  her  advice.  Can  any  one  help  seeing  that 
this  distinction  is  a  merely  traditional  thing,  and  one 
that  cannot  last  ? 

At  the  last  teachers'  convention  which  I  attended,  I 
heard  a  lady,  ]Mrs.  Knox,  give  an  address  on  the  best 
way  of  teaching  English  composition.  There  was 
assembled  a  great  body  of  teachers,  some  five  or  six 
hundred  ;  the  church  was  crowded  ;  and  yet  this  lady 
faced  the  audience  for  some  three-quarters  of  an  hour, 
—  she  being  armed  only  with  a  piece  of  chalk  and  a 
blackboard,  —  and  held  it  in  close  attention.  Without 
perceptible  effort,  and  without  a  word  or  an  attitude 
that  was  otherwise  than  womanly  and  graceful,  she 
taught  the  teachers,  men  and  women  alike.  I  do  not 
see  how  it  is  possible  that  the  alleged  supremacy  of 
man  can  long  withstand  such  influences. 

It  seems  very  appropriate  to  read  from  town  after 
town,  in  reference  to  the  late  school  elections,  "  The 

first  lady  to  deposit  her  ballot  was  Miss ,  a  teacher 

in  the  high  school."  AVho  else  should  be  first  ?  I  do 
not  think  that  men  generally  comprehend  how  absurd 
it  is  to  an  experienced  teacher,  who  has  for  3'ears  been 
putting  into  the  brains  of  dull  boys  all  the  activity  they 
possess,  to  see  those  boys  grow  up  to  be  men  And  voters, 
and  decid«  what  to  do  with  the  money  she  pays  in 
taxes,  while  she  is  set  aside  as  "only  a  woman." 
Her  pupils  cannot  make  a  speech  in  town-meeting, 
they  cannot  present  a  report  on  any  subject,  they  can- 


212  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

not  show  any  capacity  of  leadership,  without  exhibiting 
the  influence  she  has  had  over  them.  Yet  they  are  now 
as  entirely  beyond  her  direct  reach  as  if  she  were  a  hen 
who  had  hatched  dui-klings,  and  had  lived  to  see  them 
swimming  away.  But  the  teachers  are  worse  off  than 
the  hens  ;  because  they  have  actually  taught  their  duck- 
lings to  swim,  and  could  swim  themselves  if  permitted. 
After  all,  Horace  Mann  builded  better  than  he  knew. 
Every  step  in  the  training  of  women  as  teachers  implies 
a  farther  step. 


CUPID-AyD-PSYCHOLOGY:'  213 


LVI. 

"  CUPID-AXD-PSYCHOLOGY." 

The  learned  Master  of  Trinity  Colleg:e,  Cambridsje, 
England,  is  frequently  facetious ;  and  bis  jokes  are 
quoted  with  the  deference  due  to  the  chief  officer  of 
the  chief  college  of  that  great  universit}'.  Now.  it  is 
known  that  the  Cambridge  colleges,  and  Trinity  Col- 
lege in  particular,  are  doing  a  great  deal  for  the  in- 
struction of  women.  The  3'oung  women  of  Girton 
College  and  Newuham  College, — both  of  these  being 
institutions  for  women,  in  or  near  Cambridge, — not 
only  enjoy  the  instruction  of  the  university,  but  they 
share  it  under  a  guaranty  that  it  shall  be  of  the  best 
quality ;  because  they  attend,  in  many  cases,  the  very 
same  lectures  with  the  young  men.  AThere  this  is  not 
done,  they  sometimes  use  the  vacant  lecture-rooms  of 
the  college  ;  and  it  was  in  connection  with  an  applica- 
tion for  this  privilege  that  the  Master  of  Trinity  College 
made  his  last  joke,  —  the  last,  at  any  rate,  that  has 
crossed  the  Atlantic.  When  told  that  the  lecture-room 
was  needed  for  a  class  of  3"oung  women  in  psychology, 
he  said.  "Psychology?  "NVhat  kind  of  psychology? 
Cupid-and-Psychology,  I  suppose." 

Cupid-and-Psychology  is,  after  all,  not  so  bad  a 
department  of  instruction.  It  may  be  taken  as  a  good 
enoush    symbol    of    that    minalinix   of  head  and  heart 


214  CO:^IMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

which  is  the  best  result  of  all  training.  One  of  the 
worst  evils  of  the  separate  education  of  the  sexes  has 
been  the  easy  assumption  that  men  were  to  be  made  all 
head,  and  women  all  heart.  It  was  to  correct  the  evils 
of  this,  that  Ben  Jonson  proposed  for  his  ideal  woman 

"  a  learned  and  a  manly  soul." 

It  was  an  implied  recognition  of  it  from  the  other  side 
when  the  great  masculine  intellect,  Goethe,  held  up  as 
a  guiding  force  in  his  Faust  "the  eternal  womanly" 
(das  eivige  iveibliche) .  After  all,  each  sex  must  teach 
the  other,  and  impart  to  the  other.  It  will  never  do  to 
have  all  the  brains  poured  into  one  human  being,  and 
christened  "man;"  and  all  the  affections  decanted 
into  another,  and  labelled  "woman."  Nature  herself 
rejects  this  theory.  Darwin  himself,  the  interpreter  of 
nature,  shows  that  there  is  a  perpetual  effort  going  on, 
by  unseen  forces,  to  equalize  the  sexes,  since  sons 
often  inherit  from  the  mother,  and  daughters  from  the 
father.  And  we  all  take  pleasure  in  discovering  in 
the  noblest  of  each  sex  something  of  the  qualities  of 
the  other,  — the  tender  affections  in  great  men,  the  im- 
perial intellect  in  great  women. 

On  the  whole,  there  is  no  harm,  but  rather  good,  in 
tlie  new  science  of  Cupid-aud-Psycholog3\  There  are 
combinations  for  which  no  single  word  can  suffice.  The 
phrase  belongs  to  the  same  class  with  Lowell's  witty 
denunciation  of  a  certain  tiresome  letter-writer,  as 
being,  not  his  incubus,  but  his  "  pen-and-inkubus."  It 
is  as  well  to  admit  it  first  as  last :  Cupid-and-Psychology 
will  be  taught  wherever  young  men  and  women  study 
together.     Not  in  the  direct  and  simple  form  of  mutual 


\ 


"  CUPIB-AXD-PSYCnOLOGT/'  215 

love-making,  perhaps  ;  for  they  tell  the  visitor,  at  uni- 
versities which  admit  both  sexes,  that  the  young  men 
and  maidens  do  not  fall  in  love  with  each  other,  but 
are  apt  to  seek  their  mates  elsewhere.  The  new  science 
has  a  wider  bearing,  and  suggests  that  the  brain  is  in- 
complete, after  all,  without  the  affections  ;  and  so  are 
the  affections  without  the  brain.  The  very  professor- 
ship at  Harvard  University  which  Rev.  Dr.  Peabody  is 
just  leaving,  and  which  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks  has  been 
invited  to  fill,  was  founded  by  a  woman,  Miss  Plum- 
mer  ;  and  the  name  proposed  by  her  for  it  was  '  •  a  pro- 
fessorship of  the  heart,"  though  they  after  all  called  it 
only  a  professorship  of  ''  Christian  morals."  We  need 
the  heart  in  our  colleges,  it  seems,  even  if  we  onh^  get 
it  under  the  ingenious  title  of  Cupid-and-Psychology. 


216  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 


LVII. 
MEDICAL   SCIEXCE   FOR   WOMEN. 

In  reading,  the  other  day,  a  speech  on  the  Medical 
Education  of  Women,  it  struck  me  that  the  most  impor- 
tant reason  for  this  education  was  one  which  the 
speaker  had  not  mentioned,  —  the  fact  that  the  medical 
profession  stands  for  science  ;  and  that  women  peculiarly 
need  science,  since  their  natural  bent  is  supposed  to  be 
a  little  the  other  way.  The  other  professions  represent 
tradition  very  generally  :  the  law3^er  must  be  bound  by 
precedents ;  the  clergyman  generally  admits  that  he 
must  go  back  to  his  texts.  But  the  ph^^sician  claims, 
at  least,  to  be  a  man  of  science,  and  stands  for  that 
before  the  world.  Hence  the  sacredness  with  which 
his  position  has  always  been  surrounded.  The  Florida 
Indians,  according  to  the  early  voyagers,  not  only  took 
the  physician's  medicine,  but  they  took  the  physician 
himself  internally,  after  his  death.  All  other  men  were 
buried  ;  but  the  bod}^  of  the  physician  was  burned,  and 
his  ashes  mixed  with  water,  by  way  of  a  permanent 
prescription. 

At  any  rate,  tlie  physician  himself  popularly  stands 
for  science  ;  and,  in  this  point  of  view,  his  position  is 
very  noble.  I  have  known  physicians  whose  professed 
materialism  was  more  elevated  than  most  of  what  the 
world    calls  religion.      To  trace  that   wondrous    power 


1 


MEDICAL    SCIEXCE  FOE    WOMEN.  217 

called  life,  which  takes  these  particles  of  matter,  and 
makes  them  think  with  thought,  or  glow  with  passion, 
or  put  forth  an  activity  so  intense  as  to  be  the  parent 
of  new  life  from  generation  to  generation,  —  this  study 
is  something  sublime.  lie  who  reverenth^  ponders  on 
this  may  call  himself  theist  or  atheist,  he  is  yet  worthy 
to  be  revered :  if  he  can  teach  us,  he  blesses  us.  "I 
touch  heaven,"  said  Novalis,''  when  I  la}^  my  hand  on 
a  human  body  ;  "  and  the  popularity  among  physicians 
of  that  fine  engraving  of  Vesalius  standing  ready  for 
his  first  dissection,  shows  that  they  take  a  higher  view 
of  their  vocation  than  the  world  sometimes  admits. 

It  seems  to  me  peculiarly  important  that  women 
should  have  a  share  in  these  studies.  They  often  have 
time  enough.  It  takes  more  time  for  a  woman  to  make 
herself  charming  than  to  make  herself  learned,  Sydney 
Smith  sa^'s  ;  and  he  thinks  it  a  pity  that  she  should 
often  hang  up  her  brains  on  the  wall  in  poor  pictures, 
or  waft  them  into  the  air  in  poor  music,  when  they 
might  be  better  employed.  Yet  a  great  physician,  Dr. 
Currie,  says  in  his  letters  that  he  always  preferred  to 
have  an  ignorant  patient  bring  his  wife  with  him,  be- 
cause he  could  always  get  more  careful  observation  and 
quicker  suggestions  from  the  woman.  This  point  lies 
directly  in  the  line  of  medical  education. 

The  stud}^  lies  also  directly  in  their  path  as  prospec- 
tive wives  and  mothers,  and  this  alone  would  furnish  a 
suflScient  reason  for  it.  A  woman  of  superior  gifts, 
who  had  studied  medicine,  but  never  adopted  it  as  a 
l)rofession,  told  me  that  the  mere  domestic  use  of  her 
knowledge  had  more  than  repaid  her  for  all  the  troul^le 
it  had  cost.      For  a  man  who  sliould  thus  abandon  the 


218  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

pursuit,  it  would  be  of  comparatively  little  service,  apart 
from  the  general  training  ;  but  for  a  woman,  if  she  ful- 
fills the  commoner  duties  of  a  woman's  life,  this  early 
knowledge  will  always  be  a  source  of  direct  strength. 
This  applies  in  a  degree  to  surgery  also ;  and  I  have 
always  wondered,  in  view  of  the  old  proverb  that  a 
surgeon  should  have  "  a  lion's  heart  and  a  lad^^'s 
hand,"  why  our  professors  do  not  oftener  aim  at  de- 
veloping this  heart,  if  need  be,  in  those  who  have  the 
hand  without  trainins:. 


SEWING  IN  SCHOOLS.  219 


LYIII. 

SEWING  IX  SCHOOLS. 

Mr.  N.  T.  Allen,  of  West  Newton,  Mass.,  who  has 
had  much  experience  and  success  as  a  teacher  of  both 
sexes,  has  been  visiting  the  German  public  schools. 
He  has  lately  given  an  interesting  report  of  his  obser- 
vations to  the  Middlesex  County  Teachers'  Association. 
The  reporter  says  (the  Italics  being  my  own) ,  — 

"  Mr.  Allen  paid  particular  attention  to  the  Dorf  Scliule  of 
the  cities,  and  the  Biirger  Schule  of  the  country,  both  being  of 
the  lower  grades;  and  contended  that  the  educational  system 
of  Germany  was  far  from  being  perfect,  and  was  inferior  in 
certain  respects  to  that  adopted  in  some  of  our  own  States, 
and  .carried  into  successful  operation  in  several  towns  and 
communities.  It  was  compulsory  and  autocratic,  in  that  par- 
ents were  not  allowed  any  choice  in  the  education  of  their 
children;  it  was  unjust  toward  girls,  in  establishing  and  perpet- 
uating the  idea  of  their  great  mental  inferiority  to  the  boys  ;  it 
was  undemocratic,  in  having  different  schools  for  different 
castes  and  classes  of  society;  and  it  was  extremely  sectarian 
and  bigoted  in  the  religious  dogmatic  instruction  j)rescribed 
and  forced  upon  all." 

It  is  well  known  that  in  the  Cierman  schools  a  certain 
number  of  hours  aye  given  by  the  girls  to  sewing,  and 
that  their  course  of  study,  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
boys,  is  narrowed  to  make  room  for  this.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  I,  for  one,  dread  to  see  sewing  brought  into 


220  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

our  public  schools.  So  strong  is  still  the  disposition  in 
many  minds  to  put  off  girls  with  less  schooling  than 
boys,  that  it  seems  unsafe  to  provide  so  good  an  excuse 
for  this  inequality. 

The  whole  theory  of  industrial  schools  is  liable  to  a 
similar  danger,  —  that  of  introducing  class  distinctions 
into  our  education.  It  tends  toward  that  other  evil  of 
the  German  system,  described  by  Mr.  Allen,  "having 
different  scliools  for  different  castes  in  society."  I 
hold  to  the  old  theory  of  providing  all  boys  and  girls, 
whatever  their  parentage  or  probable  pursuit,  with  a 
good  basis  of  common-school  education,  and  then  trust- 
ing the  intellectual  faculties,  thus  sharpened,  to  help 
them  in  the  struggle  for  life.  Just  as  it  was  found  in 
the  army  that  a  well-educated  young  man  who  had 
never  handled  a  musket  soon  overtook  and  passed  a 
comrade  of  inferior  brains  who  had  been  in  the  militia 
from  bo^^ood,  so  is  it  found  to  be  with  those  whose 
minds  have  been  well  taught  in  our  public  schools.  But 
whether  this  criticism  holds,  or  not,  against  industrial 
schools,  as  such,  it  certainly  holds  when  we  further 
make  an  industrial  discrimination  against  all  girls. 
This  we  do,  if  we  take  an  hour  of  their  time  for  sew- 
ing, when  the  boys  give  that  hour  to  study. 

But  it  will  be  said.  Ought  not  girls  to  be  taught  to 
sew?  Undoubtedly.  All  boys  ought  to  be  taught  the 
use  of  hammer  and  plane  and  screw-driver,  and,  for 
that  matter,  plain  sewing  also.  Girls  need  sewing 
no  doul)t ;  and  they  should  be  taught  it  at  home,  or 
at  school,  or  wherever  they  can  find  a  teacher.  But, 
for  all  this,  to  assign  to  sewing  any  thing  like  the 
same  relative  importance  that  belonged  to  it  a  hundred 


SEWIXG   ly  SCHOOLS.  221 

years  ago,  or  even  twenty  years  ago,  is  to  overlook  the 
changed  conditions  of  modern  societ3\  Let  us  con- 
sider this  a  moment. 

The  Old-'World  theor}"  was  that  all  imaginable  hard 
work  was  to  be  done  by  human  hands.  But  the  New- 
World  theory  is  —  for  it  is  a  New  World  wherever  the 
theory  is  recognized  —  that  all  this  work  should  be 
done,  as  far  as  possible,  by  human  brains.  Napoleon 
defined  it  as  his  ultimate  intention  for  the  French 
people,  "  to  convert  all  trades  into  arts,"  the  head 
doing  the  work  of  the  hands.  This  applies  to  woman's 
work  as  much  as  any  other.  The  epoch  of  private 
spinning  and  weaving  was  an  epoch  of  barbarism  ;  the 
vast  mills  of  Lowell  and  Fall  River  now  do  that  toil. 
The  sewing-machine  does  a  day's  work  in  an  hour. 
But  all  this  machinery  came  out  of  somebod^^'s  brain, 
and  is  adapted  to  a  race  of  women  with  brains.  The 
treasurer  of  half  a  dozen  manufacturing  corporations 
told  me  last  week,  that,  though  the  mills  were  filled 
with  French  and  Irish,  the  superiority  of  American 
"•  help"  was  just  as  manifest  as  ever,  and  the  manu- 
facturers would  gladly  keep  them  if  they  could  :  they 
could  almost  always  tend  more  looms,  for  instance. 
Those  who  have  tried  to  teach  the  use  of  the  sewing- 
machine  to  the  Southern  negroes  or  poor  whites  know 
how  hard  it  is.  A  sewing-machine  is  a  step  in  civ- 
ilization :  its  presence  in  a  house,  like  that  of  a  piano, 
proves  a  certain  stage  of  advancement.  Its  course 
runs  parallel  with  that  of  the  common-school ;  and  an 
agent  for  this  machine,  like  those  who  sell  improved 
agricultural  implements,  would  instinctively  avoid  those 
regions  where  there  are  no  schoolhouses. 


222  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

I  do  not  undervalue  the  use  of  the  hands,  or  the 
need  of  physical  training  for  both  hoy?,  and  girls.  But, 
after  all,  the  hands  must  be  kept  subordinate  to  the 
head.  If  industrial  training  is  to  be  the  first  thing, 
then  ever}^  Irish  parent  who  takes  his  ten-3'ear-old  girl 
from  school,  and  sends  her  to  the  factory,  is  in  the 
path  of  virtue.  If,  on  the  other  haiid,  it  be  found  that 
some  time  can  be  advantageously  taken  from  l)ooks, 
and  given  to  some  handiwork,  without  loss  of  intellec- 
tual progress,  that  is  a  different  thing.  That  is  only 
an  intellectual  eight-hour  bill  or  fi^-e-hour  bill ;  and,  for 
one,  I  should  gladly  favor  that.  But  let  it  be  done  as 
securing  the  best  education  for  all ;  not  as  a  class-edu- 
cation, or  as  merel}^  utilitarian :  and  let  it  be  done 
as  rigidly  for  bo^^s  as  for  girls.  Let  us  not  set  out  with 
the  theory  that  a  boy  may  avail  himself  of  all  the  divis- 
ions of  labor  in  modern  societ}^,  but  that  every  girl 
must  still  spin  her  own  cloth,  and  sew  her  own  seam. 


♦  X 


CASH  PBFMIUMS  FOB   STUDY.  223 


LIX. 

CASH   PRE:\riUMS  FOR   STUDY. 

On  looking  over  the  Harvard  College  catalogue,  I 
am  struck  with  the  great  pecuniary  inducements  which 
are  held  out  to  tempt  3'oung  gentlemen  to  study. 
There  are,  to  begin  with,  one  hundred  and  seventeen 
' '  scholarships  ;  ' '  yielding  incomes  ranging  from  $40  to 
$350  annually,  but  averaging  $225.  The  total  income 
of  these  is  $19,635.  Then  there  are  "loan"  and 
"  beneliciary  "  funds,  amounting  to  $4,700  annually, 
and  given  or  lent  in  sums  from  $25  to  $75.  Then 
there  are  "  monitorships,"  yielding  $700  per  annum; 
and  various  money  prizes,  amounting  to  some  $1,200. 
The  whole  amount  that  is  or  may  be  paid  in  cash  to 
undergraduates  ever}^  3'ear  is  more  than  $25,000,  which 
may  perhaps  reach  a  hundred  and  fifty  young  men. 
No  wonder  that  the  catalogue  asserts  that  • '  The  experi- 
ence of  the  past  warrants  the  statement  that  good 
scholars  of  high  character,  but  slender  means,  are  sel- 
dom or  never  ol:>liged  to  leave  college  for  want  of 
money." 

Probably  one-sixth  of  the  eight  hundred  undergradu- 
ates of  Harvard  College  receive  direct  pecuniary  aid  in 
studying  there  ;  and,  as  scholarship  is  an  essential  in 
securing  most  of  this  pecuniary  aid,  it  is  probable  that 
half  the  high  scholars  in  every  class  are  thus  directly 


224  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

helped.  Observe  that  this  is  in  addition  to  the  general 
value  of  the  college  endowments  to  all  students,  over 
and  above  what  they  pay  for  tuition,  —  an  amount  lately 
estimated  by  tbe  academical  authorities  at  one  thousand 
dollars,  at  least,  for  every  graduate.  Apart  from  all 
this,  I  was  told  many  years  ago,  by  that  very  acute  ob- 
server, the  late  President  James  Walker  of  Harvard 
University,  that  in  his  opinion  one-quarter  of  the  un- 
dergraduates were  maintained  in  college  through  the 
personal  self-denial  and  sacrifices  of  mothers  and  sis- 
ters. 

But  what  a  tremendous  protective  tariff,  what  an  ir- 
resistible "  discriminating  dut}^"  is  this  !  While  boys 
are  thus  bribed  largel}^  year  b}"  j^ear,  to  come  to  Cam- 
bridge, and  study,  —  so  that  the  influence  of  all  this 
promise  of  pecuniary  aid  is  felt  through  every  academy 
and  high  school  in  the  land,  —  we  find,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  every  girl  who  wishes  to  pursue  similar 
studies  is  expected  to  pay  at  the  full  market  rates  for 
all  she  gets,  and  even  then  cannot  enter  Harvard  Col- 
lege. In  some  of  our  normal  schools  her  board  may 
be  paid,  I  believe,  on  condition  that  she  becomes  a 
teacher ;  but  I  know  of  no  place  where  she  herself  is 
paid,  as  young  men  are  paid,  merely  to  come  and 
study.  Ex-Gov.  Bullock  founded  one  scholarship  at 
Amherst,  of  which  the  income  is  to  be  given  by  pref- 
erence to  a  woman  —  when  a  woman  is  admitted! 
But  unfortunately  that  time  has  not  come.  And  yet 
those  who  sit  by  the  banks  of  this  golden  stream,  and 
monopolize  all  its  benefits,  have  a  tone  of  sublime  con- 
tempt for  those  who  are  not  permitted  to  approach  it, 
and  never  can  quite  forgive  the  impecunious  condition 


CASH  PBEMIUMS   FOR    STUDY.  225 

of  these  outcasts  !  ' '  Your  scholarship  is  not  to  bo 
compared  to  ours,"  they  say  to  women.  "-  Certainly 
not,"  the  women  may  fairly  reply:  "we  were  never 
paid  salaries  that  we  might  become  scholars." 

The  thing  that  perpetually  neutralizes  all  claims  of 
chivahy,  all  professions  of  justice,  all  talk  of  fairness, 
as  between  the  sexes,  is  this  class  of  facts.  Woman  is 
systematically  excluded  from  training,  and  then  told 
she  must  not  compete  ;  if  admitted  to  compete,  she  is 
so  weighted  by  artificial  disadvantages,  that  it  is  hard 
for  her  to  win.  If  her  brain  is  inferior,  she  should  be 
helped ;  if  her  natural  obstacles  are  greater,  all  other 
hinderances  should  be  the  more  generously  swept  away. 
Give  girls  a  chance  at  a  high  school,  they  use  it,  and 
they  there  equal  bo^'s  in  scholarship ;  in  our  academies, 
in  our  normal  schools,  there  is  no  deficiency  on  their 
part.  Even  in  our  colleges  they  ask,  as  yet,  only  ad- 
mittance, not  cash  premiums.  Only  admit  them,  and 
see  if  they  do  not  hold  their  own  unpaid,  with  the  young 
men  to  whom  j^ou  pay,  collectively,  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars  a  year  to  stay  there.  Only  a  seat  in  a  recita- 
tion-room, to  be  paid  for  at  the  full  price,  — is  this  so 
very  much  for  a  young  girl  to  ask?  Do  be  at  least  as 
generous  as  that  school  committee  in  a  Massachusetts 
town  which  shall  be  nameless,  who  said  seriously  in 
their  report,  speaking  of  a  certain  appointment,  "As 
this  place  offers  neither  honor  nor  profit,  we  do  not  see 
why  it  should  not  be  filled  by  a  woman ' '  I 


226  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LX. 

MENTAL   HORTICULTURE. 

There  was  once  a  public  meeting  held,  at  the  re- 
quest of  some  excellent  ladies,  to  consider  the  question 
whether  it  might  be  possible  for  roses  and  lilies  to 
grow  together  in  the  same  garden.  Many  of  the 
ladies  were  quite  used  to  gardening,  and  had  opinions 
of  their  own  ;  but,  as  it  w^as  not  proper  for  them  to 
open  their  lips  before  people,  they  of  course  could  not 
testify.  So  several  respectable  gentlemen  —  clergy- 
men and  professors  —  were  invited  to  tell  them  all 
about  it.  Some  of  these  gentlemen  had  seen  a  rose, 
and  some  had  seen  a  lil}^,  but  it  turned  out  that  very 
few  of  them  had  ever  happened  to  see  a  garden.  Still, 
as  they  were  learned  men,  they  could  give  very  valua- 
ble suggestions.  One  of  them  explained,  that,  as  roses 
and  lilies  assimilated  very  different  juices  from  the  soil, 
they  could  not  possibly  grow  in  the  same  soil.  An- 
other pointed  out,  that,  as  they  needed  different  pro- 
portions of  sun  and  of  air,  they  should  have  ver}^  dif- 
ferent exposures,  and  therefore  must  be  kept  apart. 
Another,  more  daring,  suggested,  that,  as  God  had  put 
the  two  species  into  the  same  world,  it  was  quite  possi- 
ble that  they  might  grow  in  the  same  enclosure  for  a 
time,  perhaps  for  about  fourteen  years,  but  that,  if 
they  were  left  longer  together,    they  would   certainly 


MENTAL   IIOBTICULTURE.  227 

blight  and  destroy  each  other.  All  this  seemed  very 
conclusive  ;  and  the  meeting  was  about  to  vote  that 
roses  and  lilies  should  never  be  allowed  to  exist  in  the 
same  garden,  unless  with  a  brick  wall  twenty  feet  high 
between. 

But  it  so  happened  that  a  sensible  gardener  from  a 
distant  State  was  present,  and  got  up  to  say  a  word 
■before  the  debate  closed.  "Bless  your  souls,  my  good 
people,  what  are  you  talking  about?  "  said  he.  "  Roses 
and  lilies  are  already  growing  together  by  the  thousand, 
all  over  the  country,  and  you  may  as  well  close  your 
discussion."  Upon  which  the  meeting  broke  up  in 
some  confusion  :  the  brick  wall  was  never  built ;  but 
the  clergyman  went  back  to  his  study,  the  professor  to 
his  lecture-room,  tlie  physician  to  his  patients,  and  all 
remained  in  the  conviction  that  the  gardener  was  a  good 
sort  of  man,  but  strangely  ignorant  of  scientific  horti- 
culture. 

"Which  things  are  an  allegor3^"  The  writer  has 
been  reading  the  report,  in  the  Boston  Daily  Adver- 
tiser, of  a  recent  debate  on  female-  education. 

J  suppose  that  those  born  and  bred  in  New  England 
can  never  quite  abandon  the  feeling  that  this  region 
should  still  lead  the  nation,  as  it  once  led,  in  all  edu- 
cational matters.  For  one,  I  cannot  help  a  slight  sense 
of  mortification,  when,  in  an  assemblage  of  Boston  pro- 
fessors, undertaking  to  discuss  a  simple  practical  mat- 
ter, everybody  begins  in  the  clouds,  ignoring  the  facts 
before  everybody's  eyes,  and  discussing  as  a  question 
of  theory  only,  what  has  long  since  become  a  matter 
of  common  practice.  The  mortification  is  not  dimin- 
ished when  the  common-sense  has  to   be   at  last  im- 


228  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

ported  from  l^eyond  the  borders  of  New  England,  in 
the  shape  of  a  college  president  from  Central  New 
York.  To  him  alone  it  seems  to  have  occurred  to  re- 
mind these  dwellers  in  the  clouds  that  what  the}-  per- 
sisted in  treating  as  theory  had  been  a  matter  of  daily 
experience  in  half  the  large  towns  in  New  England  for 
the  last  quarter  of  a  centur3\ 

What  is  the  question  at  issue  ?  Simply  this  :  New 
England  is  full  of  normal  schools,  high  schools,  and 
endowed  academies.  In  the  majority  of  these,  pupils 
of  both  sexes,  from  fourteen  to  twenty-five  or  there- 
abouts, study  together  and  recite  together,  living  either 
at  home  or  in  boarding-houses',  or  in  academic  dormi- 
tories, as  the  case  ma}^  be.  This  has  gone  on  for 
many  years,  without  cavil  or  scandal.  As  a  general 
rule,  teachers  have  testified  that  they  prefer  to  teach 
these  mixed  schools  ;  at  any  rate,  the  fact  is  certain, 
that  the  sexes,  once  united  in  schools  of  this  grade, 
are  very  seldom  separated  again  ;  while  we  often  hear 
of  the  separate  schools  as  being  abandoned,  and  the 
sexes  brought  together.  Certainly  the  experiment  of 
joint  education  has  been  very  extensively  tried  in  all 
parts  of  New  England  ;  indeed,  for  schools  of  this  kind, 
in  most  regions,  the  association  of  the  sexes  is  the  rule, 
their  separation  the  exception.  Now,  the  only  remain- 
ing question  is  :  This  being  the  case,  will  it  make  any 
essential  difference  if  you  widen  the  course  of  instruc- 
tion a  little,  and  call  the  institution  a  college? 

This  is  really  the  only  problem  left  to  be  solved  ;  and 
yet  on  this  question,  thus  limited,  not  a  speaker  at  the 
above  -—  except  President  White  of  Cornell  University 
—  had  apparently  a  word  to  say.     Every  other  speaker 


MENTAL   HORTICULTURE.  229 

appeared  to  approach  the  general  theme  in  as  profound 
and  blissful  an  ignorance  as  if  he  had  lived  all  his  life  in 
Turkey  or  in  France,  or  in  some  other  country  where 
no  young  man  had  ever  recited  algebra  in  the  same 
room  with  a  young  woman  since  the  world  began. 


EMPLOYMENT. 


*'  The  non-combatant  population  is  sure  to  fare  ill  during 
the  ages  of  combat.  But  these  defects,  too,  are  cured  or 
lessened;  women  have  now  marvellous  ways  of  winning  their 
way  in  the  world;  and  mind  without  nuiscle  has  far  greater 
force  than  muscle  without  mind." — Bagehot's  Physics  and 
Politics,  c.  ii.,  §  3. 


i 


SEXUAL   LIFFEBENCE   OF  EMPLOYMENT.       233 


LXI. 
'^  SEXUAL   DIFFEREXCE   OF  EMPLOYMENT.'* 

I  AM  at  a  loss  to  imderstand  an  assertion  made  by 
Rev.  Dr.  Hedge,  at  an  educational  meeting  in  Boston, 
that  "  the  course  of  civilization  hitherto  has  tended  to 
develop  and  confirm  sexual  difference  of  employment." 
He  adds,  according  to  the  report  in  the  Daily  Advertiser, 
that,  '"the  more  civilized  the  country,  the  more  the 
vocations  of  men  and  women  divide :  the  more  savage 
the  nation,  the  more  they  blend  and  coincide." 

AVith  due  respect  for  Dr.  Hedge  on  many  grounds, 
and  especially  as  having  been  the  first  man  to  demand 
publicly  in  presence  of  the  Harvard  alumni  the  admis- 
sion of  women  to  the  university,  I  must  yet  express 
great  surprise  at  his  taking  what  seems  to  me  so  utterly 
untenable  a  position.  To  me  it  seems,  on  the  contrary, 
that  it  is  the  savage  period  which  is  remarkable  for  the 
industrial  separation  of  the  sexes ;  and  that  every 
epoch  of  advancing  civilization  —  as  the  present  — 
blends  them  more  and  more.  The  fact  would  have 
seemed  to  me  so  plain  as  hardly  to  need  more  than 
simply  to  state  it,  but  for  the  authority  of  Dr.  Hedge 
upon  the  other  side. 

As  we  trace  society  back  to  savage  life,  what  are  the 
prevailing  employments  of  the  male  sex?  More  and 
more  exclusively,  war  and  the  chase.     From  these  two 


234  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

vocations,  monopolizing  literally  the  whole  active  life 
of  the  savage  man,  the  savage  woman  is  almost  abso- 
lutely excluded.  Precisely  at  the  point  where  the  man's 
sphere  leaves  off,  in  each  of  these  pursuits,  the  woman's 
sphere  begins.  Among  American  Indians,  the  man 
takes  the  captive,  the  woman  tortures  him.  The  man 
kills  the  deer,  carries  it  till  within  sight  of  his  own  vil- 
lage, and  then  throws  it  down,  that  the  squaw  may  go 
out  and  drag  it  in.  Much  that  seems  cruel  and  selfish 
in  Indian  life  is  the  result,  as  Mrs.  Jameson  long  since 
pointed  out,  of  this  complete  separation  of  functions. 
The  reason  why  the  Indian  woman  carries  the  lodge- 
poles  and  the  provisions  on  the  march  is  that  the  man's 
limbs  may  be  left  free  and  agile  for  the  far  severer  labors 
of  war  and  of  the  chase,  from  which  she  is  excluded. 
The  reason  why  she  finally  brings  the  deer  to  the  camp 
is  because  he  has  had  the  more  exhausting  labor  of 
hunting  and  killing  it. 

Contrast  now  this  absolute  "  sexual  difference  of 
employment"  with  the  greater  and  greater  blending  of 
civilized  society,  — a  blending,  observe,  which  proceeds 
from  both  sides,  and  not  from  woman  onl3\  It  is  hard 
to  say  which  is  more  remarkable,  within  the  last  half- 
century,  —  the  wa}^  in  which  women  have  encroached 
on  men's  work,  or  the  way  in  which  men  have  en- 
croached on  women's. 

In  many  mechanical  and  commercial  pursuits,  —  as 
printing  and  bookkeeping,  —  once  almost  monopolized 
by  men,  you  now  find  a  very  large  number  of  women. 
In  some  pursuits,  as  in  education,  the  women  have 
come  to  outnumber  the  men  enormously,  at  least  in 
America ;  in  others,  as  telegraphy,  they  seem  likely  to 


SEXUAL   BIFFEBENCE   OF  EMPLOYMENT.       2oO 

do  the  same.  We  constantly  hear  of  new  channels 
opening.  A  friend  of  mine,  the  other  day,  just  before 
addressing  an  audience  on  woman  suffrage,  stepped 
into  a  barber's  shop,  and  to  his  great  amazement  was 
shaved  by  a  woman.  On  inquiry,  he  learned  for  the 
first  time,  that  a  good  many  of  that  sex,  mostly  Ger- 
mans, pursued  this  occupation  in  New  York  and  else- 
where. Thus  do  the  vocations  of  men  and  women  now 
"blend  and  coincide."  On  the  other  hand,  the  lead- 
ing dressmaker  of  the  world  is  a  man  ;  our  bonnet- 
shops  are  largely  conducted  by  men  ;  the  eminent  hotel 
cooks,  whose  salaries  exceed  any  paid  by  Harvard 
University,  are  men  ;  and  the  lady  who  goes  to  rest  in 
a  sleeping-car  on  our  railroads  has  her  pillow  smoothed 
and  her  curtains  drawn,  not  by  a  chambermaid,  but  by 
a  chamberman. 

These  are  the  facts  which  seem  to  me,  I  must  sa}^, 
quite  fatal  to  Dr.  Hedge's  theory.  And  there  is  one 
thing  worth  noticing  in  the  very  different  criticisms 
passed  on  men  and  on  women  as  to  these  invasions  of 
each  other's  province.  If  you  call  attention  to  the  way 
in  which  men  are  everywhere  taking  part  in  women's 
work,  people  say  approvingly,  "To  be  sure!  greater 
energy,  greater  skill !  they  do  even  women's  work 
better  than  women  themselves  can."  But  if  you  point 
out,  that,  on  the  other  hand,  women  are  also  doing 
men's  work,  and  in  some  cases  —  as  in  literature  and 
lecturing  —  are  actually  obtaining  higher  prices  than 
most  men  can  obtain,  the  same  people  shake  their 
heads  disapprovingly,  and  say,  "  Unsexed ;  out  of 
their  sphere  !  "  Now,  if  we  lived  in  an  age  of  chival- 
rous protection  of  women,  it  would  be  a  different  thing  ; 


236 


COMMOJSf   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 


but,  as  we  live  iu  an  age  of  political  economy,  there  is 
no  reason  why  men  alone  should  have  the  benefit  of  its 
laws.  If  practical  life  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  game  of 
puss-in-the-corner,  I  should  recommend  to  each  ejected 
puss  to  make  for  the  best  corner  she  finds  open,  without 
much  deference  to  the  theories  of  the  sages. 


THE    USE  OF  OXE'S  FEET.  237 


LXII. 

THE   USE   OF   OXE'S   FEET. 

Is  it  better  to  staucl  ou  oue's  own  feet,  or  to  depend 
on  those  of  other  people  ?  We  need  clear  views  on  that 
matter,  certainly ;  and  there  is  not  much  doubt  which 
theory  will  ultimately  prevail. 

For  one,  I  believe  the  whole  theory  of  a  leisure-class, 
whether  for  man  or  woman,  to  be  a  snare  and  a  delu- 
sion c  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  one  great  drawback 
that  a  young  American  mny  encounter,  —  namely,  the 
possession  of  an  independent  property ;  and  that  there 
is  one  great  piece  of  good  fortune,  — to  be  thrown  on 
one's  self  for  support.  Of  all  influences  for  develop- 
ment or  usefulness,  I  know  of  none  so  great  as  "the 
wholesome  stimulus  of  pecuniary  necessity."  Of  all 
forms  of  social  organization,  that  seems  to  me  the  most 
favorable  which  opens  to  all  most  freely  the  opportunity 
of  early  education,  and  then  calls  upon  each  to  exert 
himself  for  his  own  support. 

To  be  sure,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  overrate  the  value 
of  cultivated  companionship  and  refined  association. 
In  other  countries  it  may  be  worth  while,  for  the  sake 
of  these,  to  be  born  to  wealth  :  it  is  so  hard  to  get  them 
without  wealth.  But  the  happiest  and  best  American 
households  are  apt  to  be  found  among  such  as  Miss 
Alcott,  for  instance,  habitually  describes,  where  there  is 


238  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

plenty  of  refinement  and  very  little  money  ;  where  per- 
haps there  has  been  wealth  in  times  past,  but  it  has 
been  lost  just  in  time  for  the  good  of  the  children.  All 
that  money  can  bring  —  all  books,  all  travel,  all  art  — 
are  not  worth  so  much  as  the  power  to  stand  on  one's 
own  feet.  It  is  an  essential  to  the  character,  and  it  is 
certainly  the  greatest  of  delights.  To  have  earned,  for 
a  single  year,  one's  own  support,  gives  one,  in  a  man- 
ner, the  freedom  of  the  universe.  Till  that  is  done,  we 
are  children  :  after  that  we  are  mature  human  beings. 

In  England,  where  the  whole  social  atmosphere  is  so 
different,  there  are  many  instances  of  much  service 
done  to  art  and  phiUmthrop}"  by  persons  born  to  leisure. 
And  yet,  even  in  England,  if  the  admissions  of  English 
people  may  be  trusted,  these  instances  are  bought  by  a 
frightful  disproportion  of  wasted  lives ;  and  the  best 
work  is,  after  all,  done  by  those  who  have  learned  to 
stand  on  their  own  feet.  This  last  fact  is  certainly  true 
of  France,  German}^,  and  America.  So  far  as  my  own 
observation  goes,  for  one  American  born  to  leisure  who 
makes  a  good  use  of  it,  there  are  a  dozen  who  lead  empty 
or  vicious  lives.  And  even  that  exceptional  one,  with 
all  his  advantages,  is  often  distanced  in  the  race  by  the 
men  who  have  early  had  to  stand  on  their  own  feet. 
The  man  of  leisure  is  nsually  so  limited,  either  by  the 
absence  of  stimulus  or  by  the  tiresome  narrowness  of 
a  petty  circle,  or  by  missing  the  wholesome  attrition  of 
other  minds,  that  he  dwindles  and  grows  feeble.  If 
such  a  man  attains  by  the  aid  of  wealth  what  the  man 
of  the  next  inferior  grade  attains  without  it,  we  are  all 
glad,  and  say  it  is  "an  honorable  instance."  Not  that 
the  rich  are  worse  than  other  men.     It  is  no  calamity 


TUE    USE   OF  OXE'S   FEET.  289 

to  earn  wealth,  or  even  to  inherit  it  after  we  have 
learned  the  lesson  of  self-reliance.  It  is  the  children 
of  wealth  who  are  to  be  pitied. 

Now,  all  women  who  are  born  outside  of  actual  pov- 
erty in  America  are  as  badly  off  as  if  they  had  been 
born  to  wealth.  They  are  systematically  discouraged 
from  the  delightful  tonic  of  self-supix)rt.  But  when 
it  is  said  that  they  never  even  feel  the  desire  to  support 
themselves,  I  must  dissent.  For  twenty  years  I  have 
been  encountering  young  women  who  so  longed  for  the 
sense  of  an  independent  position  that  even  the  happiest 
paternal  home  could  not  satisfy  them  unless  it  gave 
them  so  much  to  do  that  they  might  honestly  feel  that 
they  earned  their  living.  Otherwise  the  most  luxurious 
arm-chairs  in  their  own  houses  would  not  satisfy  them, 
they  so  longed  to  learn  the  use  of  their  own  feet.  I 
have  known  girls  to  rejoice  in  their  father's  loss  of 
property,  because  it  would  release  them  to  eujo}^  the 
happiness  of  self-reliance  ;  and,  for  one,  had  I  the  good 
fortune  to  have  a  dozen  daughters,  I  should  wish  them 
all  to  be  of  this  way  of  thinking.  Any  other  theory 
would  give  us  a  world  of  mere  amateurs  and  dilettantes, 
and  ver}'  little  work  would  be  done.  We  are  getting 
over  the  theory  that  it  is  undignified  for  a  man  to  stand 
upon  his  own  feet ;  and  we  shall  one  day  get  over  it  in 
regard  to  women. 


240  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 


LXIII. 

MISS    INGELOW'S    PROBLEM. 

In  a  certain  New  England  town  I  lived  opposite  the 
house  of  a  thriving  mechanic.  His  wife,  a  young  and 
pretty  woman,  soon  attracted  the  attention  of  my  house- 
hold by  the  grace  and  vivacity  of  her  bearing,  and  the 
peculiar  tastefuluess  of  her  own  and  her  little  boy's 
costume.  On  further  acquaintance,  we  found  that  she 
did  every  atom  of  her  housework,  washing  and  all ; 
that  she  cut  and  made  every  garment  for  herself  and 
her  child  ;  and  that,  finding  her  energies  still  unsatisfied, 
she  took  in  sewing-work  from  a  tailor's  shop,  and  thus 
earned  most  of  the  money  for  their  wardrobe.  It  may 
be  well  to  add,  to  complete  this  story  of  New  England 
social  life,  that  her  husband  was  one  of  the  very  earliest 
volunteers  for  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  ;  that  he  went  in 
captain,  came  out  brigadier-general,  and  now  holds  an 
important  government  office. 

There  is  nothing  isolated  or  unexampled  about  this 
instance.  My  pretty  and  ladylike  neiglibor  was  only 
energetic,  ready,  capable,  and  ambitious,  or,  to  sum 
it  all  up  in  the  New  England  vernacular,  "smart." 
Whatever  she  saw  in  society  or  life  that  was  desirable 
for  herself  or  her  husband  or  her  child,  that  she  aimed 
at,  and  generally  obtained. 

She  "hadn't  a  laz}^  bone  in   her  body;"    and  she 


MISS  INGELOW'S  PROBLEM.  241 

never  will  have,  though  she  may  wear  that  body  out 
prematurely  by  nervous  tension.  Wherever  she  goes, 
she  will  carry  the  same  restless,  tireless  energy ;  and, 
should  her  husband  ever  go  to  Congress  or  to  the  Court 
of  St.  James,  she  will  carry  herself  with  perfect  fear- 
lessness and  ease.  And  in  all  this  she  represents  one 
great  type  of  New  England  women. 

When  you  ask  of  such  a  woman  if  she  shrinks  from 
work,  it  is  as  if  you  asked.  Does  a  deer  shrink  from 
running,  or  a  swallow  from  flying  ?  She  loves  the  work  : 
indeed  she  loves  it,  in  my  opinion,  far  too  much,  and 
sets  a  dangerous  example.  All  theories  of  the  natural 
indolence  of  man  —  or  woman  —  fall  defeated  before 
the  New  England  temperament,  traditions,  training,  cli- 
mate ;  before  that  "  whip  of  the  sky,"  as  a  poet  has 
sung,  that  urges  us  on.  If,  therefore,  "household 
work  is  thought  degrading,"  —  and  Miss  Ingelow  asserts 
too  hastily  that  "  nowhere  is  this  so  much  the  case  as 
in  America, "  —  it  certamly  is  not  merely  because  it  is 
work. 

For  myself,  I  doubt  the  fact,  and  demand  the  evi- 
dence. So  far  as  the  free  States  of  the  Union  are  con- 
cerned, it  seems  to  me  that  household  labor  is  thought 
less  degrading  than  in  England,  and  that  the  proportion 
of  well-taught  and  ladylike  women  who  contentedly  do 
their  own  work  is  far  greater  in  America,  and  keeps 
pace  with  the  greater  spread  of  average  education. 
There  is  not  a  city  in  the  laud,  I  suppose,  —  certainly 
not  a  village,  —  where  the  housework  in  a  large  majority 
of  the  American-born  families  is  not  done  by  Ameri- 
cans ;  for  the  large  majority  are  always  mechanics  and 
laborers,  among  wliom,  as  a  rule,  the  work  is  done  by 


242  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

the  wives  and  sisters  and  daughters.  The  wages  of 
domestics  are  so  much  higher  in  America  than  in  Eng- 
land,—  being  almost  double, — that  it  is  here  a  more 
serious  expenditure  to  emplo}^  such  aid. 

I  think,  therefore,  that  we  must  be  very  cautious 
before  we  say  that  housework,  as  such,  is  held  degrad- 
ing in  the  free  States.  No  doubt,  American  women 
feel,  as  their  husbands  and  brothers  feel,  that  all 
work  should  be  done  by  machinery,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, and  that  the  washing-machine  and  the  carpet- 
sweeper  are  as  legitimate  as  the  patent  reaper  or 
mower.  They  would  be  foolish  if  they  did  not.  They 
also  feel,  as  American  men  feel,  that,  in  this  great  as- 
semblage of  all  nations,  the  place  for  the  American  is 
rather  in  posts  of  command  than  in  the  ranks.  In  our 
ships  3^ou  find  men  of  all  nations  in  the  forecastle,  but 
Americans  in  the  cabin.  In  the  regular  army  it  is  the 
officers,  commissioned  or  non-commissioned,  who  are 
Americans.  Go  as  far  west  as  3'ou  please,  j^ou  are 
surprised  to  find  that  the  railway  officials,  superin- 
tendents, conductors,  baggage-masters,  are  not  merely 
American-born  but  often  New-England-born.  The 
better  average  education  tells.  It  is  in  the  fitness  of 
things  that  the  under-work  of  household  life  also  should 
be  done  by  the  under-class  of  foreign  elements,  and 
that  it  should  be  Americans  who  do  the  direction  and 
guidance.  Some  such  instinct  as  this  is  the  explanation 
of  much  that  Miss  Ingelow  takes  for  a  contempt  of 
household  labor.  An  American  woman  does  not  de- 
spise such  labor,  properly  speaking,  any  more  than  an 
American  man  despises  mechanical  labor.  Both  aim, 
if  they  can,  to  rise  to  o'cupatio::-  more  lucrative  and 
more  iutellecluMl. 


MISS  INGELOWS   PROBLEM.  243 

It  is  not  the  labor,  it  is  not  even  the  household 
labor,  to  which  objection  is  made.  When  you  come  to 
household  labor  for  other  people,  done  in  a  capacity 
recognized  as  menial,  — ay,  there's  the  rub  !  There  is  a 
widespread  feeling  that  domestic  service  in  other  peo- 
ple's families  is  menial. 

For  one  I  have  publicly  remonstrated  against  the 
excess  of  this  feeling,  and  think  it  is  carried  too  far. 
Women  will  never  compete  equally  with  men,  until  they 
are  willing,  like  men,  to  do  an}^  honest  work  without 
sense  of  degradation.  This  is  one  point  where  enfran- 
chisement will  help  them.  So  long  as  a  man  bears  in 
his  hand  the  ballot,  that  symbol  of  substantial  equality, 
his  self-respect  is  not  easily  impaired  by  the  humblest 
position.  "A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that,"  he  knows, 
before  the  law.  But  a  woman,  not  having  this,  has 
only  the  usages  of  society  to  guide  her  ;  and,  so  long- 
as  society  talks  about  "  master  "  and  ''  servant,"  I  do 
not  blame  the  American  girl  for  refusing  to  accept  such 
a  position, — just  as  I  do  not  blame,  but  applaud,  the 
American  man  for  refusing  to  wear  livery.  I  only 
condemn  them,  in  either  case,  when  the  alternative  is 
starvation  or  sin.     Then  pride  should  yield. 

But  this  is  the  conclusive  proof  that  it  is  not  the 
housework  which  is  held  degrading :  the  fact  that  Ihere 
is  no  difficulty  in  securing  any  number  of  American  girls 
in  our  large  country  hotels,  where  they  associate  with 
their  employers  as  equals,  and  call  no  man  master.  The 
fact  that  the  proprietors  of  such  hotels  invariably  prefer 
American  "  help  "  to  Irish,  shows  that  the  philosophy 
of  the  whole  question  lies  in  a  different  direction  from 
that  indicated  by  our  good  friend  Miss  Ingelow.     The 


244  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 

evil  of  which  she  speaks  does  not  properly  exist :  the 
real  difficulty  lies  in  a  different  direction,  and  cannot  be 
settled  till  we  see  farther  into  the  social  organization 
that  is  to  come. 


SELF-S  UPP  OR  T.  245 


LXIV. 
SELF-SUPPORT. 

It  is  the  English  theory,  that  society  needs  a  leisure 
class,  not  self-supporting,  from  whom  public  services 
and  works  of  science  and  art  may  proceed.  Even  Dar- 
win recognizes  this  theory.  But  how  little  is  England 
doing  for  science  and  art,  compared  to  Germany !  and 
the  German  work  of  that  kind  is  not  done  by  a  leis- 
ure class,  but  by  poor  men.  I  believe  that  the  neces- 
sity of  self-support,  at  least  in  the  earlier  years  of  life, 
is  the  best  training  for  manhood  ;  and  it  does  not  seem 
desirable  that  women  should  be  wholly  set  free  from  it. 

A  clever  writer,  on  the  other  hand,  maintains  in  the 
New  York  Independent  that  women  should  never  sup- 
port themselves  if  it  be  possible  honorably  to  avoid  it. 
'•  Pecuniar}^  dependence,  degrading  to  men,  is  not  only 
not  undignified,  but  is  the  only  thoroughly  dignified 
condition,  for  women.  In  a  renovated  and  millennial 
society  all  women  will  be  supported  by  men,  —  will  have 
no  more  to  do  with  bringing  in  money  than  the  lilies  of 
the  field."  This  statement  is  delightfully  uncomprom- 
ising, and  it  is  a  great  thing  to  hear  an  extreme  posi- 
tion so  clearly  and  unequivocally  put.  Especially  on  a 
question  so  difficult  as  the  labor  and  wages  of  women, 
it  is  particularly  desirable  to  have  each  extreme  worked 
out  to  its  loixical  results. 


246  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

It  is  certainly  the  normal  condition  of  woman  to  be 
a  wife  and  a  mother.  It  is  equally  certain  that  this 
condition  withdraws  woman  from  the  labor-market, 
during  the  prime  of  her  life.  The  very  j^ears  during 
which  a  man  attains  his  highest  skill,  and  earns  his 
highest  wages,  —  sa}^,  from  twenty-five  to  fort}^, — are 
lost  to  woman,  in  this  normal  condition,  so  far  as  earn- 
ing money  is  concerned.  This  is  the  main  fact,  as  I 
judge,  which  keeps  down  the  standard  of  both  work 
and  pay  among  women,  as  a  class.  If  men,  as  a  class, 
were  thus  heavily  weighted,  the  result  would  be  as 
clearly  seen.  Wliere  one  sex  brings  into  the  market 
the  full  vigor  of  its  life,  and  the  other  has  only  crude 
labor,  or  occasional  labor,  or  broken  labor,  to  offer, 
the  result  cannot  be  doubtful.  Yet  this  is  precisely  the 
state  of  the  competition  between  man  and  woman. 

I  believe,  therefore,  with  this  writer,  that  woman 
was  not  intended  to  be  the  equal  competitor  of  man  in 
business  pursuits  —  or,  indeed,  to  be  self-supporting  at 
all  —  during  her  career  of  mothei'hood.  It  is  generally 
recognized  as  a  calamity,  when  she  is  obliged  to  sup- 
port herself  at  that  time.  Most  people  believe  with 
Miss  INIitford  that  "  women  were  not  meant  to  earn  the 
bread  of  a  famil3%"  and  that  men  are.  But  to  earn 
the  bread  of  a  family  is  not  self-support :  it  is  much 
more  than  self-support.  And  when  this  writer  takes  a 
step  beyond,  and  says,  "  I  think  the  necessity  of  earn- 
ing her  own  living  is  always  a  woman's  misfortune," 
then  she  seems  to  theorize  beyond  good  sense,  and  to 
confuse  things  very  different.  Self-support  is  one 
thing :  sirpporting  seven  small  children  is  quite  another 
thinii. 


SELF-SUPPORT.  247 

That  which  should  never  be  left  out  of  sight  is  the 
essential  dignity  of  labor.  "Woman  during  the  period 
of  maternity  is  rightl}^  excused  from  earning  money  ; 
but  it  is  because  she  is  better  occupied.  She  is  not 
exempted  in  the  character  of  lily  of  the  field,  but  in 
the  capacity  of  mother  of  a  famil3\  It  is  an  important 
distinction.  For  labor  in  the  lower  sense,  she  substi- 
tutes what,  in  a  higher  and  more  sacred  sense,  we  still 
call  ••labor."  She  is  not  supported  because  she  is  a 
woman,  but  because,  in  her  capacity  as  woman,  she 
happens  to  have  home-duties.  If  she  had  no  such 
duties,  there  seems  no  reason  why  she  should  be  sup- 
ported any  more  than  if  she  were  a  man.  To  be  a 
wife  and  mother  is  a  vocation,  and  one  which  usually 
for  a  time  precludes  all  others.  Merely  to  be  a 
woman  is  not  a  vocation  ;  and,  so  long  as  one  can 
make  no  better  claim  on  the  world  than  that,  the  world 
has  a  rioht  to  demand  somethinsj  more.  The  Irish- 
woman  who  locks  her  little  children  into  her  one  room, 
that  she  may  go  out  to  earn  their  bread,  seems  to  me 
in  a  position  no  falser  than  that  of  the  over-worked 
father  who  breaks  himself  down  with  toil  that  his 
daughters  may  live  like  the  lilies  of  the  field. 


248  C02IM0]^  SENSE  ABOUT   WO^IEN. 


LXV. 

SELF-SUPPORTING  WIVES. 

For  one,  I  have  never  been  faseinated  by  the  stj^le 
of  domestic  paradise  that  English  novels  depict, — half 
a  dozen  unmarried  daughters  round  the  family  hearth, 
all  assiduously  doing  worsted-work  and  petting  their 
papa.  I  believe  a  sufficiency  of  employment  to  be  the 
only  normal  and  healthy  condition  for  a  human  being  ; 
and  where  there  is  not  work  enough  to  employ  the  full 
energies  of  all,  at  home,  it  seems  as  proper  for  young 
women  as  for  young  birds  to  leave  the  parental  nest. 
If  this  additional  work  is  done  for  money,  very  well. 
It  is  the  conscious  dignity  of  self-support  that  removes 
the  traditional  curse  from  labor,  and  woman  has  a 
right  to  claim  her  share  in  that  dignified  position. 

Yet  I  cannot  agree,  on  the  other  hand,  with  Celia 
Burleigh  when  she  says  that  her  ' '  True  Woman ' ' 
should  be  self-supporting,  even  in  marriage.  AVo- 
men's  part  of  the  family  task  —  the  care  of  home  and 
children  —  is  just  as  essential  to  building  up  the  family 
fortunes  as  the  very  different  toil  of  the  out-door  part- 
ner. For  3'oung  married  women  to  undertake  any  more 
direct  aid  to  the  family  income  is  in  most  cases  utterly 
undesirable,  and  is  asking  of  themselves  a  great  deal 
too  much.  And  this  is  not  because  they  are  to  be  en- 
couraged in  indolence,  but  because  they  already,  in  a 


SELF-SUPPOBTIXG    WIVES.  249 

normal  condition  of  things,  have  their  hands  full.  As^ 
on  this  point,  I  may  differ  from  some  of  my  readers, 
let  me  explain  precisely  what  I  mean. 

As  I  write,  there  are  at  work,  in  another  part  of  the 
house,  two  paper-hangers,  a  man  and  his  wife,  each 
fort3'-five  or  fifty  years  of  age.  Their  children  are 
grown  up,  and  some  of  them  married  :  they  have  a 
daughter  at  home,  who  is  old  enough  to  do  the  house- 
work, and  leave  the  mother  free.  There  is  no  way  of 
organizing  the  labors  of  this  household  better  than  this  : 
the  married  pair  toil  together  during  the  day,  and  go 
home  together  to  their  evening  rest.  A  happier  couple  I 
never  saw  ;  it  is  a  delight  to  see  them  cheerily  at  work 
together,  cutting,  pasting,  hanging  :  their  life  seems  like 
a  prolonged  industrial  picnic ;  and,  if  I  had  the  ill-luck 
to  own  as  many  palaces  as  an  English  duke,  I  should 
keep  them  permanently  occupied  in  putting  fresh  papers 
on  the  walls. 

But  the  merit  of  this  employment  for  the  woman  is, 
that  it  interferes  with  no  other  duty.  Were  she  a 
young  mother  with  little  children,  and  obliged  by  her 
paper-hanging  to  neglect  them,  or  to  leave  them  at  a 
"daj'-nursery,"  or  to  overwork  herself  by  combining 
too  many  cares,  then  the  sight  of  her  would  be  very  sad. 
So  sacred  a  thing  does  motherhood  seem  to  me,  so  par- 
amount and  absorbing  the  duty  of  a  mother  to  her 
child,  that  in  a  true  state  of  society  I  think  she  should 
be  utterly  free  from  all  other  duties,  —  even,  if  possi- 
ble, from  the  ordinary  cares  of  housekeeping.  If  she 
has  spare  health  and  strength  to  do  these  other  things 
as  pleasures,  very  well ;  but  she  should  be  relieved 
from  them  as  duties.      And,  as  to  the  need  of  self- 


250  C0M3I0N   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

support,  I  can  hardl}^  conceive  of  an  instance  where  it 
can  be  to  the  mother  of  yonno;  children  any  thing  but 
a  disaster.  As  we  all  know,  this  calamity  often  occurs  ; 
I  have  seen  it  among  the  factory-operatives  at  the  North, 
and  among  the  negro-women  in  the  cotton-fields  at  the 
South  :  in  both  cases  it  is  a  tragedy,  and  the  bodies 
and  brains  of  mother  and  children  alike  suffer.  That 
the  mother  should  bear  and  tend  and  nurture,  while 
the  father  supports  and  protects,  —  this  is  the  true 
division. 

Does  this  bear  in  any  way  upon  suffrage  ?  Not  at 
all.  The  mother  can  inform  herself  upon  public  ques- 
tions in  the  intervals  of  her  cares,  as  the  father  among 
his  ;  and  the  baby  in  the  cradle  is  a  perpetual  appeal  to 
her,  as  to  him,  that  th  .  institutions  under  which  that 
baby  dwells  may  be  kept  pure.  One  of  the  most  de- 
voted young  mothers  I  ever  knew  —  the  younger  sister 
of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli  —  made  it  a  rule,  no  matter 
how  much  her  children  absorbed  her,  to  read  books  or 
newspapers  for  an  hour  every  day ;  in  order,  she  said, 
that  their  mother  should  be  more  than  a  mere  source 
of  physical  nurture,  and  that  her  mind  should  be  kept 
fresh  and  alive  for  them.  But  to  demand  in  addition 
that  such  a  mother  should  earn  money  for  them,  is  to 
ask  too  much ;  and  there  is  many  a  tombstone  in  New 
England,  which,  if  it  told  the  truth,  would  tell  what 
comes  of  such  an  effort. 


THE  PBOBLEM  OF   WAGES.  251 


LXVI. 

THE   PROBLEM  OF   WAGES. 

Talking,  the  other  da3%  with  one  of  the  leading 
dressmakers  of  a  New  England  town,  I  asked  her  why 
it  was,  that,  when  women  suffered  so  much  from  scanty 
employments  and  low  pay,  there  should  yet  be  so  few 
good  dressmakers.  *'  You  are  all  overrun  and  worn 
out  with  work,"  I  said,  ''all  the  year  round;  every 
lady  in  town  complains  that  there  are  so  few  of  you  ; 
and  it  is  the  same  in  every  town  where  I  ever  lived." 
She  answered,  as  such  witnesses  always  answer.  "AVo- 
men  do  not  engage  in  occupations,  as  men  do,  for  a  life- 
time. They  expect  only  to  continue  in  them  for  a  year 
or  two,  until  they  shall  be  married.  I  employ  twelve 
girls,  and  not  one  of  them  expects  to  be  a  dressmaker 
for  life-  They  work  their  ten  hours  a  day,  under  my 
direction,  and  that  is  all." 

Here  lies  the  point  of  difference  between  the  work  of 
women  and  that  of  men,  as  a  class  :  I  mean,  in  their 
industrial  pursuits,  the  work  that  earns  money.  Until 
we  reach  this  point,  or  get  a  social  philosophy  that 
explains  this,  we  are  yet  upon  the  surface  only.  The 
enfranchisement  of  woman  will  help  us  towards  this, 
but  will  not,  of  itself,  solve  the  problem  of  wages  ; 
because  that  depends  on  other  than  political  considera- 
tions. 


252  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

Why  do  the  mass  of  men  work?  Not  from  taste, 
or  for  love  of  the  work,  but  from  conscious  need.  If 
the}'  do  not  work,  they  and  their  families  will  starve. 
It  is  a  uecessit}^,  and  a  permanent  necessity.  It  will 
last  all  their  lives,  except  in  the  case  of  a  few  who 
will  "come  into  their  property"  by  and  by,  like  Mr. 
Toots  —  and  their  work  is  usually  worth  about  as  much 
as  his.  We  see  this  ever}^  day  in  the  sons  of  rich 
men.  Their  fathers  may  bring  them  up  to  work,  yet 
the  mere  fact  that  the}^  are  to  be  relieved  from  this 
compulsion  within  a  dozen  3'ears  is  apt  to  paralyze 
their  active  faculties.  They  study  law  or  medicine,  or 
dabble  in  ' '  business  ; ' '  but  they  only  play  at  the  prac- 
tice of  their  pursuits,  because  there  is  no  conscious 
necessity  behind  them.  There  are  exceptions,  but  the 
exceptions  are  remarkable  men. 

Now,  theorize  as  we  may,  the  fact  at  present  is,  that 
what  thus  paralyzes  the  energies  of  a  few  young  men 
brings  the  same  paralysis  to  many  young  women. 
Those  whose  parents  are  wealthy  do  not  learn  any 
regular  occupation  at  all.  Those  whose  parents  are 
poor  are  obliged  b}'  necessit}'  to  learn  one  :  3'et  they  do 
not  learn  it  as  men  in  general  learn  theirs,  but  only  as 
rich  young  men  do,  as  if  it  were  something  to  be  fol- 
lowed for  a  time  only,  —  till  they  "come  into  their 
property."  To  the  rich  young  man  the  property  is  a 
landed  estate  or  some  bank-stock.  To  the  poor  girl 
the  prospective  property  is  a  husband.  She  expects  to 
be  married  ;  and  after  that  her  money-making  occupa- 
tion is  gone,  and  a  new  avocation  —  that  of  housekeep- 
ing and  maternity  —  begins.  It  is  no  less  arduous,  no 
less  honorable  ;  but  it  is  different.     In  it  her  previous 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  WAGES.  253 

special  training  goes  for  nothing ;  and  the  thought  of 
this  must  diminish  her  interest  in  the  previous  special 
training.  It  is  only  a  temporary  thing,  like  the  few 
years'  labor  of  a  rich  young  man.  There  are  excep- 
tions, but  they  are  extraordinar}'. 

One  reason  why  women's  work  is  not  at  present  so 
well  paid  as  that  of  men  is  because  it  is  not  ordinarily 
so  well  done,  especially  in  the  more  difficult  parts. 
All  employers,  male  and  female,  tell  you  this  ;  and  one 
great  reason  why  it  is  not  so  well  done  is  because 
women  have  not,  as  men  have,  a  spring  of  permanent 
necessity  to  urge  them  on.  How  shall  we  supply  the 
spring?  This  is  the  question  we  need  to  answer.  As 
yet  I  do  not  think  we  have  reached  it.  It  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  be,  like  the  suffrage  question,  one  easily 
settled.  The  reader  will  find  very  important  facts  and 
testimonies  bearing  upon  it  in  Virginia  Penny's  "Cy- 
clopaedia of  Female  Employments."  ^ 

I  confess  myself  unable,  even  after  a  good  many 
years  of  stud3\  to  solve  it  fully ;  but  a  few  proposi- 
tions, I  think,  are  sure,  and  may  be  taken  as  axioms  to 
begin  with.  The  general  wages  of  women  will  always 
depend  greatly  on  the  amount  of  skill  acquired  by  the 
mass  of  them.  The  mass  of  women  will  always  look 
forward  to  being  married,  and,  when  married,  to  being 
necessarily  withdrawn  from  the  labor-market.  Those 
who  look  forward  to  this  withdrawal  will  not,  as  a  rule, 
concentrate  themselves  upon  learning  their  vocation  as 
if  it  were  for  life  ;  and,  at  any  rate,  when  the}'  leave  it, 
they  will  take  their  skill  with  them,  and  so  lower  the 
average  skill  of  the  whole. 

1  Especially  .mi  pp.  IKI  146,  235,  233,  2i3,  24-),  2-17,  Sno,  ?AS,  322,  367,  380. 


254  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

The  problem,  therefore,  is,  how  to  equalize  wages 
between  a  sex  which  works  continually  throughout  life^ 
driven  by  conscious  necessity,  and  a  sex  which  habit- 
ually works  with  temporary  expectations,  looking  for- 
ward to  a  withdrawal  from  the  labor-market  in  a  few 
years,  and  which,  when  so  withdrawn,  carries  its  ac- 
quired skill  with  it,  leaving  only  inexperience  in  its 
place.  We  all  wish  to  solve  the  problem :  every  man 
would  like  to  have  his  daughters  as  well  paid  for  their 
labor  as  his  sons.  The  ballot  will  help  to  elucidate  it, 
no  doubt,  by  putting  woman's  political  protection,  at 
least,  into  her  own  hands  :  but  wholl}'  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem will  take  the  wisdom  of  several  generations  ;  nor 
will  it  be  done,  perhaps,  until  the  greater  problem  of 
association  vs.  competition  is  also  understood.  It  cer- 
tainly never  will  be  solved  by  slighting  the  marriage- 
relation,  or  by  advocating  either  '^  free  love  "  or  celibacy 
for  women  or  for  men. 


i 


THOROUGH.  255 


IXVII. 

THOROUGH. 

' '  The  hopeless  defect  of  women  in  all  practical  mat- 
ters," said  a  shrewd  merchant  the  other  day,  "  is,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  make  them  thorough."  It  was 
a  shallow  remark,  and  so  I  told  him.  Women  are 
thorough  in  the  things  which  they  have  accepted  as 
their  sphere,  —  in  their  housekeeping  and  their  dress 
and  their  social  observances.  There  is  nothing  more 
thorough  on  earth  than  the  way  housework  is  done  in  a 
genuine  New  England  household.  There  is  an  exquisite 
thoroughness  in  the  wa}^  a  milliner's  or  a  dressmaker's 
work  is  done,  —  a  work  such  as  clumsy  man  cannot  rival, 
and  can  hardly  estimate.  No  general  plans  his  cam- 
paigns or  marshals  his  armies  better  than  some  women 
of  society  manage  the  circles  of  which  they  are  the 
centre.  Day  and  night,  winter  and  summer,  at  city  or 
watering-place,  year  in  and  year  out,  such  a  woman 
keeps  open  house  for  her  gay  world.  She  has  a  perpet- 
ual series  of  guests  who  must  be  fed  luxuriously,  and 
amused  profusely ;  she  talks  to  them  in  four  or  five  lan- 
guages ;  at  her  entertainments,  she  notes  who  is  present 
and  who  absent,  as  carefully  as  Napoleon  watched  his 
soldiers  ;  her  interchange  of  cards,  alone,  is  a  thing  as 
complex  as  the  army  muster-rolls  :  thus  she  plans,  or- 
ganizes, conquers,  and  governs.     People  speak  of  her 


256  COMMON   SEJSfSE  ABOUT    WOMEJ^. 

existence  as  that  of  a  doll  or  a  toy,  when  she  is  the 
most  untiring  of  campaigners.  Grant  that  her  aim  is, 
after  all,  unworthy,  and  that  j^ou  pity  the  worn  face 
which  lias  to  force  so  many  smiles.  No  matter :  the 
smiles  are  there,  and  so  is  the  success.  I  often  wish 
tliat  the  reformers  would  do  their  work  as  thoroughly 
as  the  women  of  society  do  theirs. 

No,  there  is  no  constitutional  want  of  thoroughness 
in  women.  The  trouble  is,  that  into  the  new  work  upon 
which  they  are  just  entering,  they  have  not  yet  l)rought 
their  thoroughness  to  bear.  They  suffer  and  are  de- 
frauded and  are  reproached,  simply  because  they  have 
not  yet  nerved  themselves  to  do  well  the  things  which 
they  have  asserted  their  right  to  do.  A  distinguished 
woman,  who  earns  perhaps  the  largest  income  ever 
honestly  earned  by  any  woman  off  the  stage,  told  me 
the  other  day  that  she  left  all  her  lousiness  affairs  to 
the  management  of  others,  and  did  not  even  know  how 
to  draw  a  check  on  a  bank.  What  a  melancholy  self- 
exhibition  was  that  of  a  clever  American  woman,  the 
author  of  half  a  dozen  successful  books,  refusing  to 
look  her  own  accounts  in  the  face  until  they  had  got 
into  such  a  tangle  that  not  even  her  own  referees  could 
disentangle  them  to  suit  her  !  These  things  show,  not 
that  women  are  constitutionally  wanting  in  thorough- 
ness, but  that  it  is  hard  to  make  them  carry  this  qualit}^ 
into  new  fields. 

I  wish  I  could  possibly  convey  to  the  young  women 
who  write  for  advice  on  literary  projects  something  of 
the  meaning  of  this  word  "thorough"  as  applied  to 
literary  work.  Scarcely  any  of  them  seem  to  have  a 
conception  of  it.     Dash,  cleverness,  recklessness,  im- 


THOROUGH.  257 

patience  of  revision  or  of  patient  investigation,  tliese 
are  the  common  traits.  To  a  person  of  experience,  no 
stupidity  is  so  discouraging  as  a  brilliancy  that  has  no 
roots.  It  brings  nothing  to  pass  ;  whereas  a  slow  stu- 
pidit3\  if  it  takes  time  enough,  may  conquer  the  world. 
Consider  that  for  more  than  twenty  years  the  path  of 
literature  has  been  quite  as  fully  open  for  women  as  for 
men,  in  America, — the  payment  the  same,  the  honor 
the  same,  the  obstacles  no  greater.  Collegiate  education 
has  until  very  lately  been  denied  them,  but  how  many 
men  succeed  as  writers  without  that  advantage  !  Yet 
how  little,  how  very  little,  of  really  good  literary  work 
has  yet  been  done  by  American  women  !  Younapigirls  ap- 
pear one  after  another  :  each  writes  a  single  clever  story 
or  a  single  sweet  poem,  and  then  disappears  forever. 
Look  at  Griswold's  "Female  Poets  of  America,"  and 
you  are  disposed  to  turn  back  to  the  title-page,  and  see 
if  these  utterly  forgotten  names  do  not  really  represent 
the  ' '  female  poets  ' '  of  some  other  nation.  They  are 
forgotten,  as  most  of  the  more  numerous  "female 
prose  writers  "  are  forgotten,  because  they  had  no  root. 
Nobody  doubts  that  women  have  cleverness  enough, 
and  enough  of  power  of  expression.  If  ^^ou  could  open 
the  mails,  and  take  out  the  women's  letters,  as  some- 
body says,  they  would  prove  far  more  graphic  and 
entertaining  than  those  of  the  men.  They  would  be 
written,  too,  in  what  Macaulay  calls  —  speaking  of 
Madame  d'Arblay's  early  style  —  "true  woman's  Eng- 
lish, clear,  natural,  and  lively."  What  they  need,  in 
order  to  convert  this  epistolary  brilliancy  into  literature, 
is  to  be  thorough. 

You  cannot  separate  woman's  rights  and  her  responsi- 


258  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT  WOMEN, 

bilities.  In  all  ages  of  the  world  she  has  had  a  certain 
limited  work  to  do,  and  has  done  that  well.  All  that 
is  needed,  when  new  splieres  are  open,  is  that  she 
should  carry  the  same  fidelity  into  those.  If  she  will 
work  as  hard  to  shape  the  children  of  her  brain  as  to 
rear  her  bodily  offspring,  will  do  intellectual  work  as 
well  as  she  does  housework,  and  will  meet  her  moral 
responsibilities  as  she  meets  her  social  engagements, 
then  opposition  will  soon  disappear.  The  habit  of 
thoroughness  is  the  key  to  all  Ingh  success.  Whatever 
is  worth  doing  is  worth  doing  well.  Only  those  who 
are  faithful  in  a  few  things  will  lightfully  be  made  rulers 
over  ma»y. 


LITEBARY  ASPIRANTS.  259 


LXYIII. 
LITERARY   ASPIRAXTS. 

The  brilliant  Lady  Ashburton  used  to  say  of  herself 
that  she  had  never  written  a  book,  and  knew  nobody 
whose  book  she  would  like  to  have  written.  This  does 
not  seem  to  be  the  ordinary  state  of  mind  among  those 
who  write  letters  of  inquiry  to  authors.  If  I  may  judge 
from  these  letters,  the  yearning  for  a  literary  career 
is  just  now  greater  among  women  than  among  men. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  of  some  literary  successes  lately 
achieved  by  women.  Perhaps  it  is  because  they  have 
fewer  outlets  for  their  energies.  Perhaps  they  find 
more  obstacles  in  literature  than  young  men  find,  and 
have,  therefore,  more  need  to  write  letters  of  inquiry 
about  it.  It  is  certain  that  they  write  such  letters  quite 
often  ;  and  ask  questions  that  test  severely  the  sup- 
posed omniscience  of  the  author's  brain, — questions 
bearing  on  logic,  rhetoric,  grammar,  and  orthography^ ; 
how  to  find  a  publisher,  and  how  to  obtain  a  well- 
disciplined  mind. 

These  letters  may  sometimes  be  too  long  or  come  too 
often  for  convenience,  nor  is  the  consoling  postage- 
stamp  always  remembered.  But  they  are  of  great 
value  as  giving  real  glimpses  of  American  social  life, 
and  of  the  present  tendencies  of  American  women. 
They  sometimes  reveal  such  intellectual  ardor  and  im- 


260       co:sniON  sense  about  women. 

agination,  such  modesty,  and  such  patience  under  diffi- 
culties, as  to  do  good  to  the  reader,  whatever  they 
may  do  to  the  writer.  They  certain!}^  suggest  a  few 
thoughts,  which  may  as  well  be  expressed,  once  for  all, 
in  print. 

Behind  almost  all  these  letters  there  lies  a  laudable 
desire  to  achieve  success.  "  Would  3'ou  have  the  good- 
ness to  tell  us  how  success  can  be  obtained  ?  ' '  How 
can  this  be  answered,  my  dear  3'oung  lad3^  when  you 
leave  it  to  the  reader  to  guess  what  your  definition  of 
success  may  be  ?  For  instance,  here  is  Mr.  Mansfield 
Tracy  Walworth,  who  was  murdered  the  other  day  in 
New  York.  He  was  at  once  mentioned  in  the  news- 
papers as  a  "celebrated  author."  Never  in  my  life 
having  heard  of  him,  I  looked  in  Hart's  "Manual  of 
American  Literature,"  and  there  found  that  Mr.  Wal- 
worth's novel  of  "Warwick"  had  a  sale  of  seventy- 
five  thousand  copies,  and  his  "  Delaplaine  "  of  forty- 
five  thousand.  Is  it  a  success  to  have  secured  a  sale 
like  that  for  your  books,  and  then  to  die,  and  have 
your  brother  penmen  ask,  "Who  was  he?"  Yet, 
certainty,  a  sale  of  seventy-five  thousand  copies  is  not 
to  be  despised ;  and  I  fear  I  know  many  youths  and 
maidens  who  would  willingly  write  novels  much  poorer 
than  "Warwick"  for  the  sake  of  a  circulation  like 
that.  I  do  not  think  that  Hawthorne,  however,  would 
have  accepted  these  conditions  ;  and  he  certainly  did 
not  have  this  st^^le  of  success. 

Nor  do  I  think  he  had  any  right  to  expect  it.  He 
had  made  his  choice,  and  had  reason  to  be  satisfied. 
The  very  first  essential  for  literary  success  is  to  decide 
what  success  means.     If  a  3'oung  girl  pines  after  the 


LITERARY  ASPIRANTS.  261 

success  of  Marion  Harland  and  Mrs.  South  worth,  let 
her  seek  it.  It  is  possible  that  she  may  obtain  it,  or 
surpass  it ;  and,  though  she  might  do  better,  she  might 
do  far  worse.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  a  laudable  aim  to  be 
popular :  popularity  may  be  a  very  creditable  thing, 
unless  you  pay  too  high  a  price  for  it!  It  is  a  pleasant 
thing,  and  has  many  contingent  advantages,  — balanced 
by  this  great  danger,  that  one  is  apt  to  mistake  it  for 
success. 

"  Learning  hath  made  the  most,"  said  old  Fuller, 
"by  those  books  on  which  the  booksellers  have  lost." 
If  this  be  true  of  learning,  it  is  quite  as  true  of  genius 
and  originality.  A  book  may  be  immediately  popular 
and  also  immortal,  but  the  chances  are  the  other  way. 
It  is  more  often  the  case,  that  a  great  writer  gradually 
creates  the  taste  by  which  he  is  enjoyed.  Wordsworth 
in  the  last  generation  and  Emerson  in  the  present  have 
been  striking  instances  of  this  ;  and  autliors  of  far 
less  fame  have  yet  the  same  choice  which  they  had. 
You  can  take  the  standard  which  the  book-market 
offers,  and  train  yourself  for  that.  This  will,  in  the 
present  age,  be  sure  to  educate  certain  qualities  in  3'ou, 
—  directness,  vividness,  animation,  dash,  —  even  if  it 
leaves  other  qualities  untrained.  Or  you  can  make  a 
standard  of  3"0ur  own,  and  aim  at  that,  taking  your 
chance  of  seeing  the  public  agree  with  you.  Very 
likely  3'ou  may  fail ;  perhaps  you  may  be  wrong  in  ^^our 
fancy,  after  all,  and  the  public  may  be  right :  if  3'ou 
fail,  you  may  find  it  hard  to  bear  ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  may  have  the  inward  "  glory  and  jo}^  "  which 
nothing  but  fidelity  to  an  ideal  standard  can  give.  All 
this  applies  to  all  forms  of  work,  but  it  applies  con- 
spicuousl}^  to  literature. 


262  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  offering  to  young  writers  the 
usual  comforting  assurance,  that,  if  they  produce  any 
thing  of  real  merit,  it  will  be  sure  to  succeed,  I  should 
caution  them  first  to  make  their  own  definition  of 
success,  and  then  act  accordingly.  Hawthorne  suc- 
ceeded in  his  way,  and  Mr.  M.  T.  Walworth  in  his  way  ; 
and  each  of  these  would  have  been  ver}^  unreasonable 
if  he  had  expected  to  succeed  in  both  ways.  There  is 
always  an  opening  for  careful  and  conscientious  literary 
work ;  and,  by  such  work,  many  persons  obtain  a 
modest  support.  There  are  also  some  great  prizes  to 
be  won  ;  but  these  are  commonly,  though  not  always, 
won  by  work  of  a  more  temporary  and  sensational 
kind.  Make  your  choice  ;  and,  when  you  have  got 
precisely  what  you  asked  for,  do  not  complain  because 
you  have  missed  what  you  would  not  take. 


THE   CABEER    OF  LETTEBS:'  263 


LXIX, 

"THE  CAREER  OF  LETTERS." 

A  TOUXG  girl  of  some  talent  once  told  me  that  she 
had  devoted  herself  to  "the  career  of  letters."  I 
found,  on  inquh'}%  that  she  had  obtained  a  situation  as 
writer  of  '•  society  "  gossip  for  a  New  York  newspaper. 
I  can  hardly  imagine  any  life  that  leads  more  directly 
away  from  any  really  literary  career,  or  any  life  about 
which  it  is  harder  to  give  counsel.  The  work  of  a 
newspaper-correspondent,  especial!}'  in  the  "society" 
direction,  is  so  full  of  trials  and  temptations,  for  one  of 
either  sex,  in  our  dear,  inquisitive,  gossiping  America, 
that  one  cannot  help  watching  with  especial  solicitude 
all  women  who  enter  it.  Their  special  gifts  as  women 
are  a  source  of  danger  :  they  are  keener  of  observation 
from  the  very  fact  of  their  sex,  more  active  in  curiosity-, 
more  skilful  in  achieving  their  ends  ;  in  a  world  of 
gossip  they  are  the  queens,  and  men  but  their  subjects, 
hence  their  greater  danger. 

In  Newport,  New  York,  AVashington,  it  is  the  same 
thing.  The  unbounded  appetite  for  private  information 
about  public  or  semi-public  people  creates  its  own  pur- 
veyors ;  and  these,  again,  learn  to  believe  with  un- 
flinching heartiness  in  the  work  they  do.  I  have  rarel}^ 
encountered  a  successful  correspondent  of  this  descrip- 
tion who  had  not  become  thoroughl}'  convinced  that  the 


264  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

highest  desire  of  every  human  being  is  to  see  his  name 
in  print,  no  matter  how.  Unhappily  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  encourage  this  belief :  I  have  known  men  to 
express  great  indignation  at  an  unexpected  newspaper- 
puff,  and  then  to  send  ten  dollars  privately  to  the 
author.  This  is  just  the  calamity  of  the  profession, 
that  it  brings  oue  in  contact  with  this  class  of  social 
hypocrites  ;  and  the  ''  personal  "  correspondent  gradu- 
all}'  loses  faith  that  there  is  any  other  class  to  be 
found.  Then  there  is  the  perilous  temptation  to  pay  off 
grudges  in  this  way,  to  revenge  slights,  by  the  use  of 
a  power  with  which  few  people  are  safely  to  be  trusted. 
In  mau}^  cases,  such  a  correspondent  is  simply  a  child 
playing  with  poisoned  arrows  :  he  poisons  others  ;  and  it 
is  no  satisfaction  to  know  that  in  time  he  will  also  poi- 
son himself,  and  paralyze  his  own  power  for  mischief. 
There  lies  before  me  a  letter  written  some  years  ago 
to  a  young  lady  anxious  to  enter  on  this  particular 
"career  of  letters," — a  letter  from  an  experienced 
New  York  journalist. .  He  has  employed,  he  says,  hun- 
dreds of  lady  correspondents,  for  little  or  no  compensa- 
tion ;  and  one  of  his  few  successful  writers  he  thus 
describes:  "She  succeeds  by  pushing  her  way  into 
society,  and  extracting  information  from  fashionable 
people  and  officials  and  their  wives.  .  .  .  She  flatters 
the  vain,  and  overawes  the  weak,  and  gets  by  sheer 
impudence  what  other  writers  cannot.  ...  I  would 
not  wish  you  to  be  like  her,  or  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  doing  what  she  does,  for  any  success  journalism  can 
possibly  give."  And  who  can  help  echoing  this  opin- 
ion? If  this  is  one  of  the  successful  laborers,  where 
sliall  we  place  the  unsuccessful ;  or,  rather,  is  success, 
or  failure,  the  oreater  honor? 


"  THE   CABEER    OF  LETTERS.''  265 

Personal  journalism  has  a  prominence  in  this  country 
with  which  nothing  in  any  other  country  can  be  com- 
pared. AVhat  is  called  publicity  in  England  or  France 
means  the  most  peaceful  seclusion,  compared  with  the 
glare  of  notoriety  which  an  enterprising  correspondent 
can  flash  out  at  any  time  —  as  if  by  opening  the  bull's- 
e^^e  of  a  dark  lantern  —  upon  the  quietest  of  his  con- 
temporaries. It  is  essentially  an  American  institution, 
and  not  one  of  those  in  which  we  have  reason  to  feel 
most  pride.  It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  foreign- 
ers, if  in  office,  take  to  it  very  readily  ;  and  it  is  said  that 
no  people  cultivate  the  reporters  at  AVashington  more 
assiduously  than  the  diplomatic  corps,  who  like  to 
send  home  the  personal  notices  of  themselves,  in  order 
to  prove  to  their  governments  that  they  are  highly  es- 
teemed in  the  land  to  w^hich  they  are  appointed.  But, 
however  it  may  be  with  them,  it  is  certain  that  many 
people  still  like  to  keep  their  public  and  private  lives 
apart,  and  shrink  from  even  the  inevitable  eminence 
of  fame.  One  of  the  very  most  popular  of  American 
authors  has  said  that  he  never,  to  this  day,  has  over- 
come a  slight  feeling  of  repugnance  on  seeing  his  own 
name  in  print. 


266         COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXX. 

TALKING  AND  TAKING. 

Every  time  a  woman  does  any  thing  original  or  re- 
markable, —  inventing  a  rat-trap,  let  us  say,  or  carving 
thirty-six  heads  on  a  walnut-shell,  —  all  observers  shout 
applause.  "There's  a  woman  for  you,  indeed!  In- 
stead of  talking  about  her  rights,  she  takes  them. 
That's  the  way  to  do  it.  What  a  lesson  to  these  de- 
claimers  upon  the  platform  !  ' ' 

It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  these  wise  people  that 
the  right  to  talk  is  itself  one  of  the  chief  rights  in 
America,  and  the  way  to  reach  all  the  others.  To 
talk,  is  to  make  a  beginning,  at  any  rate.  To  catch 
people  with  your  ideas,  is  more  than  to  contrive  a  rat- 
trap  ;  and  Isotta  Nogarola,  carving  thirty-six  empty 
heads,  was  not  working  in  so  practical  a  fashion  as 
Mary  Livermore  when  she  instructs  thirty-six  hundred 
full  ones. 

It  shows  the  good  sense  of  the  woman  suffrage  agi- 
tators, that  they  have  decided  to  begin  with  talk.  In 
the  first  place,  talking  is  the  most  lucrative  of  all  pro- 
fessions in  America;  and  tlierefore  it  is  the  duty  of 
American  women  to  secure  their  share  of  it.  ^Irs. 
Frances  Anne  Kemble  used  to  say  that  she  read  8hak- 
speare  in  public  "for  her  bread;"  and  when,  after 
melting  all  hearts  I)}'  a  course  of  farewell  readings,  she 


TALKING  AND    TAKING.  267 

flecided  to  begin  reading  again,  she  said  she  was 
doing  it  "for  her  butter."  80  long  as  women  are 
often  obliged  to  support  themselves  and  their  children, 
and  perhaps  their  husbands,  by  their  own  labor,  they 
liave  no  right  to  work  cheaply,  unless  driven  to  it. 
Anna  Dickinson  has  no  right  to  make  fifteen  dollars  a 
week  by  sewing,  if,  by  stepping  out  of  the  ranks  of 
needle-women  into  the  ranks  of  the  talkers,  she  can 
make  a  hundred  dollars  a  d^y.  Theorize  as  we  may,  the 
fact  is,  that  there  is  no  kind  of  work  in  America  which 
brjngs  such  sure  profits  as  public  speaking.  If  women 
are  unfitted  for  it,  or  if  they  "  know  tbe  value  of  peace 
and  quietness,"  as  the  hand-organ-man  says,  and  can 
afford  to  hold  their  tongues,  let  them  do  so.  But  if 
they  have  tongues,  and  like  to  use  them,  they  certainly 
ought  to  make  some  money  ])y  the  performance. 

This  is  the  utilitarian  view.  And  when  we  ])ring  in 
higher  objects,  it  is  plain  that  the  way  to  get  any  thing 
in  America  is  to  talk  about  it.  Silence  is  golden,  no 
doubt,  and  like  other  gold  remains  in  the  bank-vaults, 
and  does  not  just  now  circulate  very  freely  as  currency. 
Even  literature  in  America  is  utterly  second  to  oratory 
as  a  means  of  immediate  influence.  Of  all  sway,  that 
of  the  orator  is  the  most  potent  and  most  perishable  ; 
and  the  student  and  the  artist  are  apt  to  hold  themselves 
aloof  from  it,  for  this  reason.  But  it  is  the  one  means 
in  America  to  accomplish  immediate  results,  and  women 
who  would  take  their  rights  must  take  them  through 
calking.     It  is  the  appointed  way. 

Under  a  good  old-fashioned  monarchy,  if  a  woman 
wished  to  secure  any  thing  for  her  sex,  she  must  cajole 
a  court,  or  become  the  mistress  of  a  monarch.     That 


268  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

epoch  ended  with  the  French  Revohition.  When  Bona- 
parte wished  to  silence  Madame  de  Stael,  he  said, 
"  What  does  that  woman  want?  Does  she  want  the 
money  the  government  owes  to  her  father  ? ' '  When 
Madame  de  Staei  heard  of  it,  she  said,  "  The  qnestion 
is  not  what  I  want,  bnt  what  I  think."  Henceforth 
women,  like  men,  are  to  say  what  they  think.  For  all 
that  flattery  and  seduction  and  sin,  we  have  substituted 
the  simple  weapon  of  talk.  If  women  wish  education, 
they  must  talk  ;  if  better  laws,  they  must  talk.  The 
one  chief  argument  against  woman  suffrage,  with  men, 
is  that  so  few  women  even  talk  about  it. 

As  long  as  talk  can  effect  any  thing,  it  is  the  duty  of 
women  to  talk  ;  and  in  America,  where  it  effects  every 
thing,  they  should  talk  all  the  time.  When  they  have 
obtained,  as  a  class,  absolute  equality  of  rights  with 
men,  their  talk  on  this  subject  may  be  silent,  and  they 
may  accept,  if  they  please,  that  naughty  masculine  defi- 
nition of  a  happy  marriage,  — the  union  of  a  deaf  man 
with  a  dumb  woman. 


I 


HOW   TO   SPEAK  IN  PUBLIC.  269 


LXXL 

HOW   TO   SPEAK  IX  PUBLIC. 

Thitre  are  other  things  that  women  wish  to  do,  it 
seems,  beside  studying  and  voting.  There  are  a  good 
many  —  if  I  may  judge  from  letters  that  occasionally 
come  to  me  —  who  are  taking,  or  wish  to  take,  their 
first  lessons  in  public  speaking.  Not  necessarily  very 
much  in  public,  or  before  mixed  audiences,  but  perhaps 
merely  to  say  to  a  room-full  of  ladies,  or  before  the  com- 
mittee of  a  Christian  Union,  what  they  desire  to  say. 
' '  How  shall  I  make  myself  heard  ?  How  shall  I  learn 
to  express  mj^self  ?  How  shall  I  keep  my  head  clear? 
Is  there  any  school  for  debate?"  And  so  on.  My 
dear  young  lad3^  it  does  not  take  much  wisdom,  but 
only  a  little  experience,  to  answer  some  of  these  ques- 
tions.    80  I  am  not  afraid  to  try. 

The  best  school  for  debate  is  debating.  So  far  as 
mere  confidence  and  comfort  are  concerned,  the  great 
thing  is  to  gain  the  habit  of  speech,  even  if  one  speaks 
badly.  And  the  practice  of  an  ordinary  debating  soci- 
et}'  has  also  this  advantage,  that  it  teaches  you  to  talk 
sense  (lest  3'ou  be  laughed  at),  to  speak  with  some  ani- 
mation (lest  your  hearers  go  to  sleep),  to  think  out 
some  good  arguments  (because  j^ou  are  tr3'ing  to  con- 
vince somebody) ,  and  to  guard  against  weak  reasoning 
or  unfounded  assertion  (lest   3'our  opponent  trip   3'ou 


270  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

up).  Speaking  in  a  debating  society  thus  gives  you 
the  same  advantage  that  a  lawyer  derives  from  the 
presence  of  an  opposing  counsel :  you  learn  to  guard 
yourself  at  all  points.  It  is  the  absence  of  this  check 
which  is  the  great  intellectual  disadvantage  of  the  pulpit. 
When  a  lawyer  says  a  foolish  thing  in  an  argument,  he 
is  pretty  sure  to  find  it  out ;  but  a  clergyman  may  go 
on  repeating  his  foolisli  thing  for  fifty  years  without 
finding  it  out,  for  want  of  an  opponent. 

For  the  art  of  making  your  voice  heard,  I  must  refer 
you  to  an  elocutionist.  Yet  one  thing  at  least  j^ou 
might  acquire  for  yourself,  —  a  thing  that  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  all  good  speaking,  —  the  complete  and 
thorough  enunciation  of  every  syllable.  So  great  is  the 
delight,  to  m}^  ear  at  least,  of  a  perfectly  distinct  and 
clear-cut  utterance,  that  I  fear  I  should  rather  listen 
for  an  hour  to  the  merest  nonsense,  so  uttered,  than  to 
the  very  wisdom  of  angels  if  given  in  a  confused  or 
nasal  or  sloveul}^  ^'<^y-  If  you  wish  to  know  what  I 
mean  by  a  clear  and  satisfactor}^  utterance,  go  to  the 
next  woman  suffrage  convention,  and  hear  Miss  East- 
man. 

As  to  your  employment  of  language,  the  great  aim 
is  to  be  simple,  and,  in  a  measure,  conversational,  and 
then  let  eloquence  come  of  itself.  If  most  people 
talked  as  well  in  public  as  in  private,  public  meetings 
would  be  more  iuterestnig.  To  acquire  a  conversa- 
tional tone,  there  is  good  sense  in  P^dward  Hale's  sug- 
gestion, that  every  person  who  is  called  on  to  speak,  — 
let  us  say,  at  a  public  dinner,  —  instead  of  standing  up 
and  talking  about  his  surprise  at  being  called  on,  should 
simply  make  his   last  remark   to   his   neighbor  at   the 


HOW   TO   SPEAK  IX  PUBLIC.  271 

table  the  starting-point  for  what  he  says  to  the  whole 
company.  He  will  thus  make  sure  of  a  perfectly  nat- 
ural key,  to  begin  with  ;  and  can  go  on  from  this  quiet 
"As  I  was  just  saying  to  Mr.  Smith,"  to  discuss  the 
gravest  question  of  Church  or  State.  It  breaks  the  ice 
for  him,  like  the  remark  upon  the  weather  by  which  we 
open  our  interview  with  the  person  whom  we  have  longed 
for  3^ears  to  meet.  Beginning  in  this  way  at  the  level 
of  the  earth's  surface,  we  can  join  hands  and  rise  to  the 
clouds.  Begin  in  the  clouds, — as  some  of  my  most 
esteemed  friends  are  wont  to  do,  —  and  you  have  to  sit 
down  before  reaching  the  earth. 

And,  to  come  last  to  what  is  first  in  importance,  I 
am  taking  it  for  granted  that  you  have  something  to 
say,  and  a  strong  desire  to  say  it.  Perhaps  j^ou  can 
say  it  better  for  writing  it  out  in  full  beforehand.  But, 
whether  you  do  this  or  not,  remember  that  the  more 
simple  and  consecutive  your  thought,  the  easier  it  will 
be  both  to  keep  it  in  mind  and  to  utter  it.  The  more 
orderly  your  plan,  the  less  likely  you  will  be  to  "get 
bewildered,"  or  to  "lose  the  thread."  Think  it  out 
so  clearly  that  the  successive  parts  lead  to  one  another, 
and  then  there  will  be  little  strain  upon  your  memory. 
For  each  point  you  make,  provide  at  least  one  good 
argument  and  one  good  illustration,  and  you  can,  after 
a  little  practice,  safely  leave  the  rest  to  the  suggestion 
of  the  moment.  But  so  much  as  this  j^ou  must  have, 
to  be  secure.  Methods  of  preparation  of  course  vary 
extremely ;  yet  I  suppose  the  secret  of  the  composure 
of  an  experienced  speaker  to  lie  usually  in  this,  that 
he  has  made  sure  beforehand  of  a  sufficient  number  of 
good  points  to  carry  him  through,  even  if  nothing  good 


272  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

should  occur  to  him  on  the  spot.  Thus  wise  people,  in 
going  on  a  fishing-excursion,  take  with  them  not  merely 
their  fishing-tackle,  but  a  few  fish ;  and  then,  if  they 
are  not  sure  of  their  luck,  the}^  will  be  sure  of  their 
chowder. 

Thece  are  some  of  the  simple  hints  that  might  be 
given.,  in  answer  to  inquiring  friends.  I  can  remember 
when  they  would  have  saved  me  some  anguish  of  spir- 
it ;  and  they  may  be  of  some  use  to  others  now.  .  I 
write,  then,  not  to  induce  auy  one  to  talk  for  the  sake 
of  talking,  —  Heaven  forbid  !  —  but  that  those  who  are 
longing  to  say  something  should  not  fancy  the  obsta- 
cles insurmountable,  when  they  are  really  slight. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  GOVERNMENT. 


'•'That  liberty,  or  freedom,  consists  in  having  an  actual 
share  in  the  appointment  of  those  who  frame  the  laws,  and 
who  are  to  he  the  guardians  of  everj^  man's  life,  property,  and 
peace;  for  the  all  of  one  man  is  as  dear  to  him  as  the  all  of 
another,  and  the  poor  man  has  an  equal  right,  but  more  need, 
to  have  representatives  in  the  legislature  than  the  rich  one. 
That  they  who  have  no  voice  nor  vote  in  the  electing  of 
representatives  do  not  enjoy  liberty,  but  are  absolutely  en- 
slaved to  those  who  have  votes,  and  to  their  representatives; 
for  to  be  enslaved  is  to  have  governors  whom  other  men  have 
set  over  us,  and  be  subject  to  laws  made  by  the  representatives 
of  others,  without  having  had  representatives  of  our  own 
to  give  consent  in  our  behalf." — Benjami]^  Feanklin,  in 
Sjmrks's  Franklin,  ii.  372. 


WE   THE  PEOPLE.  275 


LXXII. 

WE   THE  PEOPLE. 

I  REMEMBER,  that,  wlioii  I  weiit  to  scliool,  I  used  to 
look  with  wonder  on  the  title  of  a  newspaper  of  those 
days  which  was  often  in  the  hands  of  one  of  the  older 
scholars.  I  remember  nothing  else  about  the  newspaper, 
or  about  the  boy,  except  that  the  title  of  the  sheet 
he  used  to  unfold  was  ' '  We  the  People  ;  ' '  and  that  he 
derived  from  it  his  school  nickname,  by  a  characteristic 
boyish  parody,  and  was  usually  mentioned  as  "Us  the 
Folks." 

Probably  all  that  was  taught  in  that  school,  in  regard 
to  American  history,  was  not  of  so  much  value  as  the 
permanent  fixing  of  this  phrase  in  om*  memories.  It 
seemed  very  natural,  in  later  years,  to  come  upon  my 
old  friend  "  Us  the  Folks,"  reproduced  in  almost  every 
charter  of  our  national  government,  as  thus  :  — 

"We  the  People  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a 
more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tran- 
quillity, provide  for  the  common  defence,  promote  the  general 
welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our 
posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  for  the 
United  States  of  America."  — United  States  Constitution,  Pre- 
amble. 

"We  the  People  of  Maine  do  agree,"  etc.  —  Constitution 
of  Maine. 

"All  government  of  right  originates  from  the  people,  is 


276  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

founded  in  their  consent,  and  instituted  for  the  general  good." 
—  Constitution  of  New  Hampshire. 

''Tlie  body  politic  is  formed  by  a  voluntary  association  of 
individuals;  it  is  a  social  compact,  by  which  the  whole 
PEOPLE  covenants  with  each  citizen,  and  each  citizen  with 
the  whole  people,  that  all  shall  be  governed  by  certain  laws 
for  the  common  good."  —  Constitution  of  Massachusetts. 

"■  We  THE  People  of  the  State  of  Rhode  Island  and  Provi- 
dence Plantations  ...  do  ordain  and  establish  this  constitu- 
tion of  government."  —  Constitution  of  Rhode  Island. 

''The  People  of  Connecticut  do,  in  order  more  eifectually 
to  define,  secure,  and  perpetuate  the  liberties,  rights,  and  privi- 
leges which  they  have  derived  from  their  ancestors,  hereby 
ordain  and  establish  the  following  constitution  and  form  of 
civil  government."  —  Constitution  of  Connecticut. 

And  so  ou  through  the  coustitutions  of  almost  every 
State  in  the  Union.  Our  government  is,  as  Lincoln 
said,  "  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people."  There  is  no  escaping  it.  To  question 
this  is  to  deny  the  foundations  of  the  American  govern- 
ment. Granted  that  those  who  framed  these  provisions 
may  not  have  understood  the  full  extent  of  the  princi- 
ples they  announced.  No  matter :  they  gave  us  those 
principles  ;   and,  having  them,  we  must  apply  them. 

Now,  women  may  be  voters  or  not,  citizens  or  not ; 
but  that  they  are  a  part  of  the  people,  no  one  has  de- 
nied in  Christendorn  —  however  it  may  be  in  Japan, 
where,  as  Mrs.  Leonowens  tells  us,  the  census  of  popu- 
lation takes  in  only  men,  and  the  women  and  children 
are  left  to  be  inferred.  ''  AVe  the  people,"  then,  in- 
cludes women.  Be  the  superstructure  what  it  may,  the 
foundation  of  the  government  clearly  provides  a  place 
for  them  :  it  is  impossible  to  state  the  national  theory 
in  such  a  way  that  it  shall  not  include  them.     It  is  im- 


WE   THE  PEOPLE.  277 

possible  to  deny  the  natural  right  of  women  to  vote, 
except  on  grounds  which  exclude  all  natural  right.  Dr. 
Bushnell,  in  annihilating,  as  he  thinks,  the  claims  of 
women  to  the  ballot,  annihilates  the  rights  of  the  com- 
munit}'  as  a  whole,  male  or  female.  He  ma}^  not  be 
consistent  enough  to  allow  this,  but  Mr.  T\^asson  is. 
That  keen  destructive  strikes  at  the  foundation  of  the 
building,  and  aims  to  demolish  ''AYe  the  people"  alto- 
gether. 

The  fundamental  charters  are  on  our  side.  There  are 
certain  statute  limitations  which  may  prove  greater  or 
less.  But  these  are  temporary  and  trivial  things,  always 
to  be  interpreted,  often  to  be  modified,  by  reference  to 
the  principles  of  the  Constitution.  For  instance,  when 
a  constitutional  convention  is  to  be  held,  or  new  condi- 
tions of  suffrage  to  be  created,  the  whole  people  should 
vote  upon  the  matter,  including  those  not  hitherto  en- 
franchised. This  is  the  view  insisted  on,  a  few  years 
since,  by  that  eminent  jurist,  William  Beach  Lawrence. 
He  maintained,  in  a  letter  to  Charles  Sumner  and  in 
opposition  to  his  own  party,  that  if  the  question  of 
'•  negro  suffrage  "  in  the  Southern  States  of  the  Union 
were  put  to  vote,  the  colored  people  themselves  had  a 
natural  right  to  vote  on  the  question.  The  same  is 
true  of  women.  It  should  never  be  forgotten  by  advo- 
cates of  woman  suffrage,  that,  the  deeper  their  reason- 
ings go,  the  stronger  foundation  they  find  ;  and  that  we 
have  always  a  solid  fulcrum  for  our  lever  in  that  phrase 
of  our  charters,  "  ^Ve  the  people." 


278  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXXIII. 

THE   USE   OF   THE   DECLARATION  OF   INDE- 
PEXDEXCE. 

When  young  people  l)eo:iii  to  study  geometry,  they 
expect  to  begin  with  hard  reasoning  on  tlie  very  first 
page.  To  their  surprise,  they  find  that  tlie  first  few 
pages  are  not  occupied  by  reasoning,  but  by  a  few 
simple,  easy,  and  rather  commonplace  sentences,  called 
"  axioms,"  which  are  really  a  set  of  pegs  on  which  all 
the  reasoning  is  hung.  Pupils  are  not  expected  to  go 
back  in  ever^^  demonstration,  and  prove  the  axioms.  If 
Almira  Jones  happens  to  be  doing  a  problem  at  the 
l)lackboard  on  examination-day,  at  the  high  school,  and 
remarks  in  the  course  of  her  demonstration  that  ' '  things 
which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one 
another,"  and  if  a  sharp  questioner  jumps  up,  and 
says,  "How  do  you  know  it?  "  she  simply  lays  down 
her  bit  of  chalk,  and  sa3's  fearlessly,  ""That  is  an 
axiom,"  and  the  teacher  sustains  her.  Some  things 
must  be  taken  for  granted. 

The  same  servipe  rendered  by  axioms  in  the  geome- 
try is  supplied,  in  regard  to  government,  by  the  sim- 
ple principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Right  or  wrong,  the}^  are  taken  for  granted.  Inasmuch 
as  all  the  legislation  of  the  country  is  supposed  to  be 
based  in  them,  —  they  stating  the  theory  of  our  gov- 


THE  DEC  LAB  AT  ION   OF  INDEPENDENCE.      279 

erumeiit,  while  the  Constitution  itself  only  puts  into 
organic  shape  the  application, — we  must  all  begin 
vritli  them.  It  is  a  great  convenience,  and  saves  great 
trouble  in  all  reforms.  To  the  Abolitionists,  for  in- 
stance, what  an  inestima1)le  labor-saving  machine  was 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  I  Let  them  have  that, 
and  they  asked  no  more.  Even  the  brilliant  lawyer 
Rufus  Choate,  when  confronted  with  its  plain  provisions, 
could  only  sneer  at  them  as  ••  glittering  generalities," 
which  was  equivalent  to  throwing  down  his  brief,  and 
throwmg  up  his  case.  It  was  an  admission,  that,  if 
you  were  so  foolish  as  to  insist  on  applying  the  first 
principles  of  the  government,  it  was  all  over  with  him. 

Now,  the  whole  doctrijc  of  woman  suffrage  follows 
so  du-ectly  from  these  same  political  axioms,  that  they 
are  especially  convenient  for  women  to  have  in  the 
house.  When  the  Declaration  of  Independence  enu- 
merates as  among  "self-evident"  truths  the  fact  of 
governments  "deriving  their  just  powers  from  the 
consent  of  the  governed,"  then  that  point  may  be 
considered  as  settled.  In  this  school-examination  of 
maturer  life,  in  this  grown-up  geometiy-class,  the  stu- 
dent is  not  to  be  called  upon  by  the  committee  to  prove 
that.  She  may  rightfully  lay  down  her  demonstrating 
chalk,  and  sa3\  "That  is  an  axiom.  You  admit  that 
yourselves." 

It  is  a  great  convenience.  AVe  cannot  always  be 
going  back,  like  a  Hindoo  history,  to  the  foundations 
of  the  world.  Some  things  may  be  taken  for  granted. 
How  this  simple  axiom  sweeps  away,  for  instance,  the 
cobweb  speculations  as  to  whether  voting  is  a  natural 
right,  or  a  privilege  delegated  by  society  I     No  matter 


280  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

which.  Take  it  which  way  3^011  please.  That  is  an 
al)stract  question  ;  but  the  practical  question  is  a  very 
simple  one.  ''Governments  owe  their  just  powers 
to  the  consent  of  the  governed."  Either  that  axiom 
is  false,  or,  whenever  women  as  a  class  refuse  their 
consent  to  the  present  exclusively  masculine  govern- 
ment, it  can  no  longer  claim  just  powers.  The  remedy 
then  may  be  rightly  demanded,  which  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  goes  on  to  state  :  ' '  Whenever  any 
form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends, 
it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and 
to  institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on 
such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form, 
as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety 
and  happiness." 

This  is  the  use  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Women,  as  a  class,  may  not  be  quite  ready  to  use  it. 
It  is  the  business  of  this  book  to  help  make  them  ready. 
But,  so  far  as  they  are  ready,  these  plain  provisions  are 
the  axioms  of  their  political  faith.  If  the  axioms  mean 
any  thing  for  men,  they  mean  something  for  women.  If 
men  deride  the  axioms,  it  is  a  concession,  like  that  of 
Ruf us  Choate,  that  these  fundamental  principles  are  very 
much  in  their  way.  But,  so  long  as  the  sentences  stand 
in  that  document,  they  can  be  made  useful.  If  men  try 
to  get  away  from  the  arguments  of  women  by  saying, 
"  But  suppose  we  have  nothing  in  our  theory  of  govern- 
ment which  requires  us  to  grant  your  demand  ? ' '  then 
women  can  answer,  as  the  straightforward  Traddles 
answered  Uriah  Heep,  ''But  you  have,  you  know: 
therefore,  if  you  please,  we  won't  suppose  any  such 
thing." 


THE   TRADITIONS   OF  THE  FATHERS.      281 


LXXIV. 

THE   TRADITIOXS   OF   THE   FATHERS. 

It  is  fortunate  for  reformers  that  our  fathers  were 
clear-headed  men.  If  they  did  not  foresee  all  the 
applications  of  their  own  principles, — and  who  does? 
—  they  at  least  stated  those  principles  very  distinctly. 
This  is  a  great  convenience  to  us  who  preach,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  on  the  texts  they  gave.  Thus  we 
are  constantly  told,  ''You  are  mistaken  in  thinkiuo- 
that  the  fathers  of  the  Republic,  when  they  proclaimed 
'taxation  without  representation,'  referred  to  indi- 
vidual rights.  They  were  speaking  only  of  national 
rights.  They  fought  for  national  independence,  not  for 
personal  rights  at  all." 

It  is  in  order  to  refute  this  sort  of  reasoning  that 
women  very  often  need  to  read  American  history 
afresh.  The}^  will  soon  be  satisfied  that  such  rea- 
soning may  be  met  with  a  plain,  distinct  denial.  It 
is  contrary  to  the  facts.  The  plain  truth  is,  that  our 
fathers  not  only  did  not  make  national  independence 
their  exclusive  aim,  but  they  did  not  make  it  an  airri  at 
all  until  the  war  had  actually  begun.  "I  verily  be- 
lieve," wrote  the  brave  Dr.  Warren,  "that  the  night 
preceding  the  barbarous  outrages  committed  by  the 
soldiery  at  Lexington,  Concord,  etc.,  there  were  not 
fifty  people  in  the  whole  colony  that  ever  expected  any 


282  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    1V03IEN. 

blood  would  be  shed  in  the  contest  between  us  and 
Great  Britain." 

What  was  it,  then,  that  had  kept  the  colonists  in  a 
turmoil  for  years?     Let  us  see. 

On  Monday,  the  Gth  of  March,  1775,  the  "free- 
holders and  other  inhabitants  of  Boston  "  met  in  town- 
meetmg  at  Faneuil  Hall,  Samuel  Adams  being  mod- 
erator. The  committee  appointed,  the  year  before,  to 
appomt  an  orator  ' '  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the 
horrid  massacre  perpetrated  on  the  evening  of  the  5tli 
of  March,  1770,  by  a  party  of  soldiers,"  reported  that 
they  had  selected  Joseph  Warren,  Esq.  The  meeting- 
confirmed  this,  and  adjourned  to  meet  at  the  Old  South 
at  half-past  eleven,  Faneuil  Hall  being  too  small.  At 
the  appointed  liour,  the  church  was  crowded.  The 
pulpit  was  draped  m  black.  Forty  British  ofiicers,  in 
uniform,  sat  in  the  front  pews  or  on  the  gallery-stairs. 
So  great  was  the  crowd,  tliat  Warren,  in  his  orator's 
robe,  entered  the  piilpit  by  a  ladder  through  the  win- 
dow. He  stood  there  before  the  representatives  of 
royalty,  and  in  defiance  of  the  "  Regulating  Act,"  one 
of  whose  objects  was  to  suppress  meetings  for  any 
such  purpose.  What  doctrines  did  he  stand  there  to 
proclaim  ? 

Hichard  Frothingham  in  his  admirable  "Life  of 
Warren  ' '  ^  states  the  following  as  the  fundamental 
proposition  of  this  celebrated  address  :  — 

"  That  personal  freedom  is  the  right  of  every  man,  and  tliat 
property,  or  an  exchisive  right  to  dispose  of  what  he  has  hon- 
estly acquired  by  his  own  labor,  necessarily  arises  therefrom, 
are  truths  which  common-sense  has  placed  beyond  the  reach 

1  p.  430. 


THE    TRADITIONS    OF   THE   FATHEBS.      283 

of  contradiction;  and  no  man  or  body  of  men  can,  without 
being  guilty  of  flagrant  injustice,  claim  a  right  to  dispose  of 
the  persons  or  acquisitions  of  any  other  man,  or  body  of  men, 
unless  it  can  be  proved  that  such  a  right  had  arisen  from  some 
comf)act  between  the  parties  in  which  it  has  been  explicitly 
and  freely  granted." 

"The  orator  then  traced,"  saj^s  Frothingham,  "  the 
rise  and  progress  of  the  aggressions  on  the  natural 
riglit  of  the  colonists  to  enjoy  personal  freedom  and 
representative  government."  Not  a  word  in  l)elialf 
of  national  independence  :  on  the  contrar}^  he  said, 
"An  independence  on  Great  Britain  is  not  our  aim. 
No  :  our  wish  is  that  Britain  and  the  colonies  ma}^  like 
the  oak  and  ivy,  grow  and  increase  together."  What 
he  protested  against  was  the  taking  of  individual  prop- 
erty without  granting  the  owner  a  voice  in  it,  personally 
or  through  some  authorized  representative.  And  — 
observe  !  —  this  authorization  must  not  be  a  merely  nega- 
tive or  vaguely  understood  thing  :  it  must  be  attested 
by  "  some  compact  between  the  parties  in  which  it  lias 
been  explicitly  and  freely  granted."  Any  thing  short 
of  this  was  "a  wicked  polic}^"  under  whose  influence 
the  American  had  l)egun  to  behold  the  Briton  as  a 
ruffian,  ready  "first  to  take  his  property',  and  next, 
what  is  dearer  to  every  virtuous  man,  the  liberty  of 
his  country."  The  loss  of  the  countiy's  liberty  was 
thus  staked  as  a  result,  a  deduction,  a  corollary  ;  the 
original  offence  lay  in  the  violation  of  the  natural 
right  of  each  to  control  his  own  personal  freedom 
and  personal  property,  or  else,  if  these  must  be  subor- 
dinated to  the  public  good,  to  have  at  least  a  voice  in 
the  matter.     This,  and  nothing  else  than  this,  was  the 


284  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

principle  of  those  who  fought  the  Revolution,  according 
to  the  statement  of  their  first  eminent  martyr. 

And  it  was  for  announcing  these  great  doctrines,  and 
for  sealing  them,  three  months  later,  with  his  blood, 
that  it  was  said  of  him,  on  the  fifth  of  March  follow- 
ing, "  We  will  erect  a  monument  to  thee  in  each  of  our 
grateful  hearts,  and  to  the  latest  ages  will  teach  our 
tender  infants  to  lisp  the  name  of  Warren  with  venera- 
tion and  applause."  That  the  opinions  he  expressed 
were  the  opinions  current  among  the  people,  is  proved 
by  the  general  use  of  the  cry  ' '  Liberty  and  Property  ' ' 
among  all  classes,  at  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act ;  a  cry 
which  puzzles  the  young  student,  until  he  sees  that  the 
Revolution  really  began  with  personal  rights,  and  only 
slowly  reached  the  demand  for  national  independence. 
"  Liberty  and  Property  "  was  just  as  distinctly  the  claim 
of  Joseph  Warren  as  it  is  the  claim  of  those  women  who 
now  refuse  to  pay  taxes  because  they  believe  in  the 
principles  of  the  American  Revolution. 


I 


S02II:   OLD-FASHIONED  PBINCIPLES.      285 


LXXY. 

SOME   OLD-FASHIOIsTED  PRINCIPLES, 

There  has  been  an  effort,  latel3\  to  show  that  when 
our  fathers  said,  ''Taxation  without  representation  is 
tyranny,"  they  referred  not  to  personal  liberties,  but 
to  the  freedom  of  a  state  from  foreign  power.  It  is 
fortunate  that  this  criticism  has  been  made,  for  it  has 
led  to  a  more  careful  examination  of  passages ;  and 
this  has  made  it  clear,  beyond  dispute,  that  the  Revo- 
lutionary patriots  carried  their  statements  more  into 
detail  than  is  generally  supposed,  and  affirmed  their 
principles  for  individuals,  not  merely  for  the  state  as  a 
whole. 

In  that  celebrated  pamphlet  by  James  Otis,  for  in- 
stance, published  as  early  as  1764,  ''  The  Rights  of  the 
Colonies  Vindicated,"  he  thus  clearly  lays  down  the 
rights  of  the  individual  as  to  taxation  :  —  . 

"  The  very  act  of  taxing,  exercised  over  those  who  are  not 
represented,  appears  to  me  to  be  depriving  them  of  one  of  their 
most  essential  rights  as  freemen;  and,  if  continued,  seems  to 
"be,  in  effect,  an  entire  disfrancliisement  of  every  civil  riglit. 
For  what  one  civil  right  is  worth  a  rush,  after  a  man's  property 
is  subject  to  be  taken  from  him  at  pleasure,  without  his  con-. 
sent  ?  If  a  man  is  not  his  own  assessor,  in  person  or  by  deputy, 
his  liberty  is  gone,  or  he  is  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  others."  ^ 

1  Otis  :  Rights  of  the  Colonies,  p.  58. 


286  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

This  fine  statement  has  already  doue  duty  for  liberty, 
in  another  contest ;  for  it  was  quoted  by  Mr.  Sumner  in 
bis  speech  of  March  7,  1866,  with  this  commentary :  — 

"Stronger  words  for  universal  suffrage  could  not  be  employed. 
His  argument  is,  that,  if  men  are  taxed  without  being  rej)re- 
sented,  they  are  deprived  of  essential  rights ;  and  the  continu- 
ance of  this  deprivation  despoils  them  of  every  civil  right,  thus 
making  the  latter  depend  upon  the  right  of  suffrage,  which  by 
a  neologism  of  our  day  is  known  as  a  political  right  instead  of 
a  civil  right.  Then,  to  give  point  to  this  argument,  the  patriot 
insists  that  in  determining  taxation,  '  every  man  must  be  his 
own  assessor,  in  person  or  by  deputy,'  without  which  his  liberty 
is  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  others.  Here,  again,  in  a  different 
form,  is  the  original  thunderbolt,  '  Taxation  without  represen- 
tation is  tyranny;'  and  the  claim  is  made  not  merely  for  com- 
munities, but  for  'every  man.'  " 

In  a  similar  way  wrote  Benjamin  Franklin,  some  six 
years  after,  in  that  remarkable  sheet  found  among  his 
papers,  and  called  "  Declaration  of  those  Rights  of  the 
Commonalty  of  Great  Britain,  without  wliich  they  can- 
not be  free."  The  leading  propositions  were  these 
three :  — 

"  That  every  man  of  the  commonalty  (excepting  infants, 
insane  persons,  and  criminals)  is  of  common  right  and  by  the 
laws  of  God  a  freeman,  and  entitled  to  the  free  enjoyment  of 
liberty.  That  liberty,  or  freedom,  consists  in  having  an  actual 
share  in  the  appointment  of  those  who  frame  the  laws,  and 
who  are  to  be  the  guardians  of  every  man's  life,  property,  and 
peace;  for  the  all  of  one  man  is  as  dear  to  him  as  the  all  of 
another;  and  the  poor  man  has  an  equal  right,  but  more  need, 
to  have  representatives  in  the  legislature  than  the  rich  one. 
That  they  who  have  no  voice  nor  vote  in  the  electing  of  repre- 
sentatives do  not  enjoy  liberty,  but  are  absolutely  enslaved  to 
those  who  have  votes,  and  to  their  representatives ;  for  to  be 
enslaved  is  to  have  governors  whom  other  men  have  set  over 


S03IE   OLB-FASIIIONED   PRINCIPLES.      287 

us,  and  be  subject  to  laws  made  by  the  reiDresentatives  of 
others,  without  having  had  representatives  of  our  own  to  give 
consent  in  onr  behalf.''  i 

In  quoting  these  words  of  Dr.  Franklin,  his  latest 
biographer  feels  moved  to  add,  "These  principles,  so 
familiar  to  us  now  and  so  obviously  just,  were  startling 
and  incredible  novelties  in  1770,  abhorrent  to  nearly  all 
Englishmen,  and  to  great  numbers  of  Americans." 
Their  fair  application  is  still  abhorrent  to  a  great  many  ; 
or  else,  not  willing  quite  to  deny  the  theory,  they  limit 
the  application  by  some  such  device  as  "  virtual  repre- 
sentation. ' '  Here,  again,  James  Otis  is  ready  for  them  ; 
and  Charles  Sumner  is  ready  to  quote  Otis,  as  thus  :  — 

"  No  such  phrase  as  virtual  representation  was  ever  known 
in  law  or  constitution.  It  is  altogether  a  subtlety  and  illusion, 
wholly  unfounded  and  absurd.  We  must  not  be  cheated  by 
any  such  phantom,  or  any  other  fiction  of  law  or  politics,  or 
any  monkish  trick  of  deceit  or  blasphemy." 

These  are  the  sharp  words  used  by  the  patriot  Otis, 
speaking  of  those  who  were  trying  to  convince  Ameri- 
can citizens  that  they  were  virtually  represented  in  Par- 
liament. Sumner  applied  the  same  principle  to  the 
freedmen  :  it  is  now  applied  to  women.  "Taxation 
without  representation  is  tyranny."  "Virtual  repre- 
sentation is  altogether  a  subtlety  and  illusion,  wholly 
unfounded  and  absurd."  No  ingenuity,  no  evasion, 
can  give  any  escape  from  these  plain  principles.  Either 
you  must  revoke  the  maxims  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, or  you  must  enfranchise  woman.  Stuart  Mill  well 
says  in  his  autobiography,  ' '  The  interest  of  woman  is 
included  in  that  of  man  exactly  as  much  (and  no  more) 
as  that  of  subjects  in  that  of  kings." 

1  Sparks's  Frauklin,  ii.  372. 


288  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    W03IEN. 


LXXVL 

FOUNDED   OX   A   ROCK. 

Gov.  Long's  letter  on  woman  suffrage  is  of  pef;U 
liar  value,  as  recalling  us  to  the  simple  principles  of 
"right,"  on  which  alone  the  agitation  can  be  solidly 
founded.  The  ground  once  taken  by  many,  that  women 
as  women  would  be  sure  to  act  on  a  far  higher  political 
plane  than  men  as  men,  is  now  urged  less  than  for- 
merly :  the  very  mistakes  and  excesses  of  the  agitation 
itself  have  partially  disproved  it.  No  cause  can  safely 
sustain  itself  on  the  hypothesis  that  all  its  advocates 
are  saints  and  sages  ;  but  a  cause  that  is  based  on  a 
principle  rests  on  a  rock. 

If  there  is  any  one  who  is  recognized  as  a  fair 
exponent  of  our  national  principles,  it  is  our  martyr- 
president  Abraham  Lincoln  ;  whom  Lowell  calls,  in  his 
noble  Commemoration  Ode  at  Cambridge,  — 

"  New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

What  President  Lincoln's  political  principle  was,  we 
know.  On  his  journey  to  Washington  for  his  first 
inauguration,  he  said,  "I  have  never  had  a  feeling 
that  did  not  spring  from  the  sentiments  embodied  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence."  To  find  out  what 
was  his  view  of  those  sentiments,  we  must  go  back 
several   years    earlier,    and    consider    that   remarkable 


FOUNDED    ON  A    BOCK.  289 

letter  of  his  to  the  Boston  Republicans  who  had  invited 
him  to  join  them  in  celebrating  Jefferson's  birthday, 
in  April,  1859.  It  was  well  called  by  Charles  Sumner 
"•a  gem  in  political  literature;"  and  it  seems  to  me 
almost  as  admirable,  in  its  way,  as  the  Gettysburg- 
address. 

"The  principles  of  Jeffei*son  are  the  definitions  and  axioms 
of  free  society.  And  jet  they  are  denied  and  evaded  with  no 
small  show  of  success.  One  dashingly  calls  them  'glittering 
generaUties.'  Another  bluntly  styles  them  'self-evident  lies.' 
And  others  insidiously  argue  that  they  apply  only  to  '  superior 
races.'  " 

"  These  expressions,  differing  in  form,  are  identical  in  ob- 
ject and  effect,  — the  subverting  the  principles  of  free  govern- 
ment, and  restoring  those  of  classification,  caste,  and  legiti- 
macy. They  would  delight  a  convocation  of  crowned  heads 
plotting  against  the  people.  They  are  the  vanguard,  the  sap- 
pers and  miners  of  returning  despotism.  We  must  repulse 
them,  or  they  will  subjugate  us." 

"All  honor  to  Jefferson] — the  man  who,  in  the  concrete 
pressure  of  a  struggle  for  national  independence  by  a  single 
people,  had  the  coolness,  forecast,  and  capacity  to  introduce 
into  a  merely  revolutionary  document  an  abstract  truth  appli- 
cable to  all  men  and  all  times,  and  so  to  embalm  it  there  that 
to-day  and  in  all  coming  days  it  shall  be  a  rebuke  and  a 
stumbling-block  to  the  liarbingers  of  re-appearing  tyranny  and 
oppression." 

The  special  •  •  abstract  truth  ' '  to  which  President 
Lincoln  thus  attaches  a  value  so  great,  and  which  he 
pronounces  ''applicable  to  all  men  and  all  times,"  is 
evidently  the  assertion  of  the  Declaration  that  govern- 
ments derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed,  following  the  assertion  that  all  men  are  born 
free  and  equal ;  that  is,  as  some  one  has  interpreted  it, 


290  C02IM0N   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

equally  men.  I  do  not  see  liow  any  person  but  a 
dreamy  recluse  can  deny  that  the  strength  of  our 
republic  rests  on  these  principles  ;  which  are  so  thor- 
oughly embedded  in  the  average  American  mind  that 
they  take  in  it,  to  some  extent,  the  place  occupied  in 
the  average  English  mind  by  the  emotion  of  personal 
loyalty  to  a  certain  reigning  famil}^  But  it  is  impos- 
sible to  defend  these  principles  logically,  as  Senator 
Hoar  has  well  pointed  out,  without  recognizing  that 
they  are  as  applicable  to  women  as  to  men.  If  this 
is  the  case,  the  claim  of  women  rests  on  a  right,  — 
indeed,  upon  the  same  right  which  is  the  foundation 
of  all  our  institutions. 

The  encouraging  fact  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
whole  matter  is,  not  that  we  get  more  votes  here  or 
there  for  this  or  that  form  of  woman  suffrage  —  for  ex- 
perience has  shown  that  there  are  great  ups  and  downs 
in  that  respect ;  and  States  that  at  one  time  seemed 
nearest  to  woman  suffrage,  as  Maine  and  Kansas,  now 
seem  quite  apathetic.  But  the  real  encouragement  is, 
that  the  logical  ground  is  more  and  more  conceded  ;  and 
the  point  now  usually  made  is,  not  that  the  Jefferson ian 
maxim  excludes  women,  but  that  ''the  consent  of  the 
governed  "  is  substantiall}^  given  b}^  the  general  consent 
of  women.  That  this  argument  has  a  certain  plausi- 
bilit}^,  may  be  conceded  ;  but  it  is  equally  clear  that  the 
minority  of  women,  those  who  do  wish  to  vote,  includes 
on  the  whole  the  natural  leaders,  — those  who  are  fore- 
most in  activity  of  mind,  in  literature,  in  art,  in  good 
works  of  charity.  It  is,  therefore,  pretty  sure  that  they 
only  predict  the  opinions  of  the  rest,  who  will  follow 
them   in   time.    And,  even   while  waiting,  it  is  a   fair 


FOUNDED    ON  A   BOCK.  291 

question  whether  the  "  governed  "  have  not  the  right  to 
give  their  votes  when  they  wish,  even  if  the  majority  of 
them  prefer  to  stay  away  from  the  polls.  We  do  not 
repeal  our  naturalization  laws,  although  only  the  mi- 
nority of  our  foreign-born  inhabitants  as  y^t  take  the 
pains  to  become  naturalized. 


292  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 


LXXVII. 

"THE   GOOD  OF   TPIE   GOYEKN'ED." 

Tn  Paris,  some  3^ears  ago,  I  was  for  a  time  a  resident 
111  a  cultivated  Frencli  family,  where  the  father  was 
non-committal  in  politics,  the  mother  and  sou  were 
repul)licans,  and  the  daughter  was  a  Bonapartist.  Ask- 
nig  the  mother  why  the  3^oung  lady  thus  held  to  a 
different  creed  from  the  rest,  I  was  told  that  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  that  the  streets  of  Paris  were  kept 
cleaner  under  the  empire  than  since  its  disappearance  : 
hence  her  miperialism. 

I  have  heard  American  men  advocate  the  French 
empire  at  home  and  al)road,  without  offering  reasons 
so  good  as  those  of  the  lively  French  maiden.  But 
I  always  think  of  her  remark  when  the  question  is 
seriously  asked,  as  Mr.  Parkman,  for  instance,  gravely 
puts  it  in  his  late  rejoinder  in  "  The  North  American 
Review,"  —  "  The  real  issue  is  this:  Is  the  object  of 
government  the  good  of  the  governed,  oris  it  not?" 
Taken  in  a  general  sense,  there  is  probably  no  disposi- 
tion to  discuss  this  conundrum,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  nobody  dissents  from  it.  But  the  important  point 
is:  What  does  "the  good  of  the  governed"  mean? 
Does  it  merely  mean  better  street- cleaning,  or  some- 
thing more  essential  ? 

There  is  nothins;  new  in  the  distinction.     Ever  since 


''  THE   GOOD    OF   THE   GOVERNED.''         293 

T>e  Tocqueville  wrote  his  "  Democracy  in  America," 
forty  years  ago,  this  precise  point  has  been  under 
active  discussion.  That  acute  writer  himself  recurs  to 
it  again  and  again.  Every  government,  he  points  out, 
nominally  seeks  the  good  of  the  people,  and  rests  on 
their  will  at  last.  But  there  is  this  difference :  A 
monarch}^  organizes  better,  does  its  work  better,  cleans 
the  streets  better.  Nevertheless  De  Tocqueville,  a  mon- 
archist, sees  this  advantage  in  a  republic,  that  when  all 
this  is  done  by  the  people  for  themselves,  although  the 
work  done  may  be  less  perfect,  yet  the  people  themselves 
are  more  enlightened,  better  satisfied,  and,  in  the  end, 
their  good  is  better  served.  Thus  in  one  place  he 
quotes  a  '' a  writer  of  talent"  who  complains  of  the 
want  of  administrative  perfection  in  the  United  States, 
and  says,  "We  are  indebted  to  centralization,  that 
admirable  invention  of  a  great  man,  for  the  uniform 
order  and  method  which  prevails  alike  in  all  the  muni- 
cipal budgets  (of  France)  from  the  largest  town  to  the 
humblest  commune."     But,  says  De  Tocqueville, — 

*' Whatever  may  be  my  admiration  of  this  result,  when  I  see 
the  communes  (municipahties)  of  France,  with  their  excellent 
system  of  accounts,  plunged  in  the  grossest  ignorance  of  their 
true  interests,  and  abandoned  to  so  incorrigible  an  apathy  that 
they  seem  to  vegetate  rather  than  to  live ;  when,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  observe  the  activity,  the  information,  and  the  spirit  of 
enterprise  which  keeps  society  in  perpetual  labor,  in  these 
American  townships,  whose  budgets  are  drawn  up  with  small 
method  and  with  still  less  uniformity,  —  I  am  struck  by  the 
spectacle;  for,  to  my  mind,  the  end  of  a  fjood  government  is  to 
insure  the  welfare  of  a  people,  and  not  to  establish  order  and 
regularity  in  the  midst  of  its  misery  and  its  distress."  ^ 

1  Reeves's  translation,  London,  1S3S,  vol.  i.  p.  97,  note. 


294  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

The  Italics  are  my  own ;  but  it  will  be  seen  that  he 
uses  a  phrase  almost  identical  with  Mr.  Parkman's, 
and  that  he  uses  it  to  show  that  there  is  something  to 
be  looked  at  be^'ond  good  laws, — namel3%  tlie  beneficial 
effect  of  self-government.  In  another  place  he  comes 
back  to  the  subject  again  :  — 

"It  is  incontestable  that  the  people  frequently  conducts 
public  business  very  ill;  but  it  is  impossible  that  the  lower 
order  should  take  a  part  in  public  business  without  extending 
the  circle  of  their  ideas,  and  without  quitting  the  ordinary 
routine  of  their  mental  acquirements;  the  humblest  individual 
who  is  called  upon  to  co-operate  in  the  government  of  society 
acquires  a  certain  degree  of  self-respect ;  and,  as  he  possesses 
authority,  he  can  command  the  services  of  minds  much  more 
enlightened  than  his  own.  He  is  canvassed  by  a  multitude  of 
applicants,  who  seek  to  deceive  him  in  a  thousand  different 
ways,  but  who  instruct  him  by  their  deceit.  .  .  .  Democracy 
does  not  confer  the  most  skilful  kind  of  government  upon  the 
people;  but  it  produces  that  which  the  most  skilful  govern- 
ments are  frequently  unable  to  awaken,  namely,  an  all-per- 
vading and  restless  activity,  a  superabundant  force,  and  an 
energy  which  is  inseparable  from  it,  and  which  may,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  beget  the  most  amazing  benefits. 
These  are  the  true  advantages  of  democracy."  ^ 

These  passages  and  others  like  them  are  worth  care- 
ful study.  They  clearly  point  out  the  two  dift'erent 
standards  by  which  we  may  criticise  all  political  sys- 
tems. One  class  of  thinkers,  of  whom  Fronde  is  the 
most  conspicuous,  holds  that  the  "good  of  the  people  " 
means  good  laws  4ind  good  administration,  and  that,  if 
these  are  only  provided,  it  makes  no  sort  of  difference 
whether  they  themselves  make  the  laws,  or  whether 
some    Caesar  or  Louis  Napoleon  provides  them.      All 

1  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  74,  75. 


"  THE   GOOD    OF   THE   GOVERyED.''        295 

the  traditions  of  the  early  and  hiter  Federalists  point 
this  way.  But  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  theory 
of  government  essentially  incompatible  with  American 
institutions.  If  we  could  once  get  our  people  saturated 
with  it,  they  would  soon  be  at  the  merc}^  of  some  Louis 
Napoleon  of  their  own. 

When  President  Lincoln  claimed,  following  Theodore 
Parker,  that  ours  was  not  merely  a  government  for  the 
people,  but  of  the  people  and  by  the  people  as  well,  he 
recognized  the  other  side  of  the  matter,  —  that  it  is  not 
only  important  what  laws  we  have,  but  who  makes  the 
laws  ;  and  that  ' '  the  end  of  a  good  government  is  to 
insure  the  welfare  of  a  people,"  in  this  far  wider  sense. 
That  advantage  which  the  French  writer  admits  in 
democracy,  that  it  develops  force,  energy,  and  self- 
respect,  is  as  essentially  a  part  of  "the  good  of  the 
governed,"  as  is  any  perfection  in  the  details  of  govern- 
ment. And  it  is  precisely  these  advantages  which  we 
expect  that  women,  sooner  or  later,  are  to  share.  For 
them,  as  for  men,  "  the  good  of  the  governed  "  is  not 
genuine  unless  it  is  that  kind  of  good  which  belongs 
to  the  self -2:0 verned. 


296  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 


LXXVIII. 

RULING   AT    SECOND-HAND. 

"Women  ruled  all;  and  ministers  of  state 
Were  at  the  doors  of  women  forced  to  Avait,  — 
Women,  AYho've  oft  as  sovereigns  graced  the  land, 
But  never  governed  well  at  second-hand." 

So  wrote  in  the  last  eentuiy  the  bitter  satirist  Charles 
Churchill,  and  this  verse  will  do  something  to  keep  alive 
his  name.  He  touches  the  very  kernel  of  the  matter, 
and  all  histor}^  is  on  his  side.  The  Salic  Law  excluded 
women  from  the  throne  of  France,  —  "  the  kingdom  of 
France  being  too  noble  to  be  governed  by  a  woman," 
as  it  said.  Accordingly  the  history  of  France  shows 
one  long  line  of  royal  mistresses  ruling  in  secret  for 
mischief ;  while  more  liberal  England  points  to  the 
reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  Anne  and  Victoria,  to  show 
how  usefully  a  woman  may  sit  upon  a  throne. 

It  was  one  of  the  merits  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli, 
that  she  alwa3^s  pointed  out  this  distinction.  "Any 
woman  can  have  influence,"  she  said,  "in  some  way. 
She  need  only  to  be  a  good  cook  or  a  good  scold,  to 
secure  that.  Woinan  should  not  merely  have  a  share 
in  the  power  of  man,  —  for  of  that  omnipotent  Nature 
will  not  suffer  her  to  be  defrauded,  —  but  it  should  be  a 
chartered  power,  too  fully  recognized  to  be  abused." 
W^e  have  got  to  meet,  at  any  rate,  this  fact  of  feminine 


RULIXG   AT   SECOXD-HANB.  297 

influence  in  the  world.  Demosthenes  said  that  the 
measures  which  a  statesman  had  meditated  for  a  3'ear 
might  be  overturned  in  a  day  by  a  woman.  How  infin- 
itely more  sensible,  then,  to  train  the  woman  herself  in 
statesmanship,  and  give  her  open  responsibility  as  well 
as  concealed  power ! 

The  same  principle  of  demoralizing  subordination 
runs  through  the  whole  position  of  women.  Many  a  hus- 
band makes  of  his  wife  a  doll,  dresses  her  in  fine  clothes, 
gives  or  withholds  money  according  to  his  whims,  and 
laughs  or  frowns  if  she  asks  any  questions  about  his 
business.  If  only  a  petted  slaA'e,  she  naturally  develops 
the  vices  of  a  slave  ;  and  when  she  wants  more  money 
for  more  fine  clothes,  and  finds  her  husband  out  of 
humor,  she  coaxes,  cheats,  and  lies.  Many  a  woman 
half  ruins  her  husband  by  her  extravagance,  simply 
because  he  has  never  told  her  frankly  what  his  income 
is,  or  treated  her,  in  money  matters,  like  a  rational  being. 
Bankruptcy,  perhaps,  brings  both  to  their  senses  ;  and 
thenceforward  the  husband  discovers  that  his  wife  is  a 
woman,  not  a  child.  But,  for  want  of  this,  whole  fami- 
lies and  generations  of  women  are  trained  to  deception. 
I  knew  an  instance  where  a  fashionable  dressmaker  in 
New  York  urged  an  economical  young  girl,  about  to 
be  married,  to  buy  of  her  a  costly  trousseau  or  wedding 
outfit.  ''  But  I  have  not  the  money,''  said  the  maiden. 
'^  No  matter,"  said  the  complaisant  tempter:  ''I  will 
wait  four  years,  and  send  in  the  bill  to  your  husliand 
by  degrees.  INIany  ladies  do  it."  Fancy  the  position  of 
a  pure  young  girl,  wishing  innocently  to  make  herself 
beautiful  in  the  eyes  of  her  husband,  and  persuaded  to 
go  into  his  house  with  a  trick  like  this  upon  her  con- 


298  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

science  !  Yet  it  grows  directly  out  of  the  whole  theory 
of  life  which  is  preached  to  many  women, — that  all 
they  seek  must  be  won  by  indirect  manoeuvres,  and  not 
by  straightforward  living. 

It  is  a  mistaken  system.  Once  recognize  woman  as 
born  to  be  the  equal,  not  inferior,  of  man,  and  she  ac- 
cepts as  a  right  her  share  of  the  family  income,  of 
political  power,  and  of  all  else  that  is  capable  of  dis- 
tribution. As  it  is,  we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  that 
woman,  in  mind  as  in  bod}^,  was  born  to  be  upright. 
The  women  of  Charles  Reade  —  never  b}^  any  possibility 
moving  in  a  straight  line  where  it  is  possible  to  find  a 
crooked  one  —  are  distorted  women  ;  and  Nature  is  no 
more  responsible  for  them  than  for  the  figures  produced 
by  tight  lacing  and  by  high-heeled  boots.  These  phys- 
ical deformities  acquire  a  charm,  when  the  taste  adjusts 
itself  to  them  ;  and  so  do  those  pretty  tricks  and  those 
interminable  lies.  But  after  all,  to  make  a  noble  wo- 
man, you  must  give  a  noble  training. 


TOO  MANY   VOTERS  ALREADY:'         299 


LXXIX. 

"TOO  MAXY  VOTERS   ALREADY." 

Curiously  enough,  the  commonest  argument  against 
woman  suffrage  does  not  now  take  the  form  of  an 
attack  on  women,  but  on  men.  Formerly  we  were  told 
that  women,  as  women,  were  incapable  of  voting  ;  that 
they  had  not.  as  old  Theophilus  Parsons  wrote  in 
1780,  "•  a  sufficient  acquired  discretion  ;  "  or  fhat  they 
had  not  physical  strength  enough  ;  or  that  thej^  were 
too  delicate  and  angelic  to  vote.  Now  these  remarks 
are  waived,  and  the  argument  is  :  Women  are  certainly 
unfit  for  suffrage,  since  even  men  are  imfit.  It  is 
something  to  have  women  at  last  recognized  as  politi- 
cally equal  to  men,  even  if  it  be  only  in  the  fact  of 
unfitness. 

A  spasm  of  re-action  is  just  now  passing  over  the 
minds  of  many  men,  especially  among  educated  Amer- 
icans, against  universal  suffrage.  Possibly  it  is  a  re- 
action from  that  too  great  confidence  in  mere  numbers 
which  at  one  time  prevailed.  All  human  governments 
are  as  yet  very  imi>erfect ;  and,  unless  we  view  them 
reasonably,  they  are  all  worthless.  We  try  them  by 
unjust  or  whimsical  tests.  I  do  not  see  that  anybody 
who  objects  to  universal  suffrage  has  any  working 
theor^^  to  suggest  as  a  substitute  :  the  only  plan  he  even 
implies  is  usually  that  he  himself  and  his  friends,  and 


300  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

those  whom  he  thinks  worthy,  should  make  the  laws,  or 
decide  who  should  make  them.  From  this  I  should 
utterly  dissent :  I  should  far  rather  be  governed  by  the 
community,  as  a  whole,  than  by  my  ablest  friend  and 
his  ablest  friends  ;  for,  if  the  whole  community  gov- 
erns, I  know  it  will  not  govern  very  much,  and  that  the 
tendency  will  be  towards  personal  freedom  by  common 
consent.  But  if  my  particular  friend  once  begins  to 
govern  me,  or  I  him,  the  love  of  power  would  be  in 
danger  of  growing  very  much.  It  may  be  that  he 
could  be  safely  trusted  with  such  authority,  but  I  am 
very  sure  that  I  could  not. 

We  shall  never  get  much  bej^ond  that  pithy  question 
of  Jefferson's,  "It  is  said  that  man  cannot  govern 
himself  :  how,  then,  can  he  govern  another?"  There  is 
absolutely  no  test  by  which  we  can  determine,  on  any 
large  scale,  who  are  fit  to  exercise  suffrage,  and  who 
are  not.  John  Brown  would  exclude  John  Smith  ;  and 
John  Smith  would  wish  to  keep  out  John  Brown,  espe- 
cially if  he  had  inconvenient  views,  like  him  of  Harper's 
Ferry.  The  safeguard  of  scientific  legislation  may  be 
in  the  heads  of  a  cultivated  few,  but  the  safeguard  of 
personal  freedom  is  commonly  in  the  hands  of  the 
uncultivated  man3\  The  most  moderate  republican 
thinker  might  find  himself  under  the  supervision  of 
Bismarck's  police  at  any  moment,  should  he  visit 
Berlin ;  and  how  easily  he  might  himself  fall  into  the 
Bismarck  way  of  'thinking,  is  apparent  when  we  con- 
sider that  the  excellent  Dr.  Joseph  P.  Thompson, 
writing  from  Germany,  is  understood  gravely  to  recom- 
mend the  exclusion  of  German  communists  from  the 
ports  of  the  United  States.     When  we  consider  how 


*'  TOO  MANY   VOTERS  ALBEABYy         301 

easily  the  first  principles  of  liberty  might  thus  be  sacri- 
ficed by  the  wise  few,  let  us  be  grateful  that  we  are 
protected  by  the  presence  of  the  multitude. 

Whenever  the  vote  goes  against  us,  we  are  apt  to 
think  that  there  must  be  somethinoj  wronaj  in  the  moral 
nature  of  the  voters.  It  would  be  better  to  see  if  their 
votes  cannot  teach  us  something,  —  if  the  fact  of  our 
defeat  does  not  show  that  we  left  out  something, 
or  failed  to  see  some  fact  which  our  opponents  saw. 
There  could  not  be  a  plainer  case  of  this  than  in  recent 
Massachusetts  elections.  Many  good  men  regarded 
it  as  a  hopeless  proof  of  ignorance  or  depravity  in  the 
masses,  that  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  voters  sus- 
tained General  Butler  for  governor.  For  one,  I  regard 
that  candidate  as  a  demagogue,  no  doubt ;  but  can 
anybod}^  in  Massachusetts  now  help  seeing  that  the 
instinct  which  led  that  large  mass  of  men  to  his  sup- 
port was  in  great  measure  a  true  one  ?  Every  act  of 
the  Republican  legislatures  since  assembled  has  been 
influenced  by  that  vague  protest  in  behalf  of  State 
reform  and  economy  which  General  Butler  represented. 
He  complicated  it  with  other  issues,  very  likety,  and 
swelled  the  number  of  his  supporters  by  unscrupu- 
lous means.  It  may  liave  been  very  fortunate  that 
he  did  not  succeed  ;  but  it  is  fortunate  that  he  tried, 
and  that  he  found  supporters.  In  this  remarkable 
instance  we  see  how  the  very  dangers  and  excesses  of 
popular  suffrage  work  for  good. 

For  myself,  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  have  too  many 
voters.  I  am  very  sure,  that,  in  the  long-run,  voting 
tends  to  educate  and  enlighten  men,  to  make  them 
more  accessible  to  able  leadership,  to  give  lliom  a  feel- 


302  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 

ing  of  personal  self-respect  and  independence.  This 
is  true  not  merely  of  Americans  and  Protestants,  but 
of  the  foreign-born  and  the  Roman  Catholic ;  since 
experience  shows  that  the  political  control  and  inter- 
ference of  the  priesthood  are  exceedingly  over- rated. 
I  believe  that  the  poor  and  the  ignorant  eminently 
need  the  ballot,  first  for  self-respect,  and  then  for  self- 
protection  ;  and,  if  so,  why  do  not  women  need  it  for 
precisely  the  same  reasons  ? 


SUFFRAGE. 


"No  such  phrase  as  virtual  representation  was  ever  known 
in  law  or  constitution.  It  is  altogether  a  subtlety  and  illusion, 
wholly  unfounded  and  absurd.  We  must  not  be  cheated  by 
any  such  phantom  or  any  other  trick  of  law  and  politics."  — 
James  Otis,  quoted  by  Charles  Sum^^er  in  speech  March  7, 
1866. 


DRAWING    THE  LINE.  305 


LXXX. 
DRAWING   THE   LINE. 

When  in  Dickens's  "Nicholas  Nickleby  "  the  coal- 
heaver  calls  at  the  fashionable  barber's  to  be  shaved, 
the  barber  declines  that  service.  The  coal-heaver 
pleads  that  he  saw  a  baker  being  shaved  there  the  day 
before.  But  the  barber  points  out  to  him  that  it  is 
necessary  to  draw  the  line  somewhere,  and  he  draws 
it  at  bakers. 

It  is,  doubtless,  an  inconvenience,  in  respect  to 
woman  suffrage,  that  so  many  people  have  their  own 
theories  as  to  drawing  the  line,  and  deciding  who  shall 
vote.  Each  has  his  hobby  ;  and  as  the  opportunity  for 
applying  it  to  men  has  passed  by,  each  wishes  to  catch 
at  the  last  remaining  chance,  and  apply  it  to  women. 
One  believes  in  drawing  an  educational  line  ;  another, 
in  a  property  qualification  ;  another,  in  new  restrictions 
on  naturalization  ;  another,  in  distinctions  of  race  ;  and 
each  wishes  to  keep  women,  for  a  time,  as  the  only 
remaining  victims  for  his  experiment. 

Fortunately  the  answer  to  all  these  objections,  on 
behalf  of  woman  suffrage,  is  very  brief  and  simple. 
It  is  no  more  the  business  of  its  advocates  to  decide 
upon  the  best  abstract  basis  for  suffrage,  than  it  is  to 
decide  upon  the  best  system  of  education,  or  of  labor, 
or  of  marriage.     Its  business  is  to  equalize,  in  all  these 


306  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

directions  ;  nothing  more.  When  that  is  done,  there 
will  be  plenty  still  left  to  do,  without  doubt ;  but  it  will 
not  involve  the  rights  of  women,  as  such.  Simply  to 
strike  oat  the  word  ''  male  "  from  the  statute,  —  that  is 
our  present  work.  "  What  is  sauce  for  the  goose  "  — 
but  the  proverb  is  somewhat  musty.  These  educa- 
tional and  property  restrictions  ma}^  be  of  value  ;  but, 
wherever  they  are  already  removed  from  the  men,  they 
must  be  removed  from  women  also.  Enfranchise  them 
equally,  and  then  begin  afresh,  if  you  please,  to  legis- 
late for  the  whole  human  race.  What  we  protest 
against  is  that  3'ou  should  have  let  down  the  bars  for 
one  sex,  and  should  at  once  become  conscientiously 
convinced  that  they  should  be  put  up  again  for  the 
other. 

When  it  was  proposed  to  apply  an  educational  quali- 
fication at  the  South  after  the  war,  the  Southern  white 
loyalists  all  objected  to  it.  If  you  make  it  universal, 
they  said,  it  cuts  off  many  of  the  whites.  If  you  apply 
it  to  the  blacks  alone,  it  is  manifestly  unjust.  The  case 
is  the  same  with  women  in  regard  to  men.  As  woman 
needs  the  ballot  primarily  to  protect  herself,  it  is  mani- 
festly unjust  to  restrict  the  suffrage  for  her,  when  man 
has  it  without  restriction.  If  she  needs  protection, 
then  she  needs  it  all  the  more  from  being  poor,  or 
ignorant,  or  Irish,  or  black.  If  we  do  not  see  this,  the 
freedwomen  of  the  South  did.  There  is  nothing  like 
personal  wrong  to  teach  people  logic. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  said  in  dismay,  and  sometimes 
even  by  old  abolitionists,  about  "increasing  the  number 
of  ignorant  voters."  In  ]\Iassachusetts,  there  is  an 
educational  restriction  for  men,  such  as  it  is  ;  in  Rhode 


DBA  WING    THE  LINE.  307 

Island,  a  property  qualification  is  required  for  voting 
on  certain  questions.  Personally,  I  believe  with  "  AYar- 
rington,"  that,  if  ignorant  voting  be  bad,  ignorant  non- 
voting is  worse  ;  and  that  the  enfranchised  ••  masses," 
which  have  a  legitimate  outlet  for  their  political  opin- 
ions, are  far  less  dangerous  than  disfranchised  masses, 
which  must  rely  on  mobs  and  strikes.  I  will  go  farther, 
and  say  that  I  believe  our  Republic  is,  on  the  whole,  in 
less  danger  from  its  poor  men,  who  have  got  to  stay  in 
it  and  bring  up  their  children,  than  from  its  rich  men, 
who  have  always  Paris  and  Dresden  to  fall  back  upon. 
As  to  a  property  qualification,  there  is  no  dispute  that 
Rhode  Island  —  the  only  New  England  State  which  has 
one  —  is  the  only  State  where  votes  are  publicly  bought 
and  sold  on  any  large  scale.  I  do  not  see  that  even  a 
poll-tax  or  registry-tax  is  of  any  use  as  a  safeguard  ; 
for,  if  men  are  to  be  bought,  the  tax  merely  offers  a 
more  indirect  and  palatable  form  in  which  to  pay  the 
price.  Many  a  man  consents  to  have  his  poll-tax  paid 
by  his  party  or  his  candidate,  when  he  would  reject  the 
direct  offer  of  a  dollar-bill. 

But  this  is  all  private  speculation,  and  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  woman  suffrage  movement.  All  that  we  can 
ask,  as  advocates  of  this  reform,  is,  that  the  inclusion 
or  the  exclusion  should  be  the  same  for  both  sexes. 
We  cannot  put  off  the  equality  of  woman  till  that 
time,  a  few  centuries  hence,  when  the  Social  Science 
Association  shall  have  succeeded  in  agreeing  on  the 
true  basis  of  "  scientific  legislation."  It  is  as  if  we 
urged  that  wives  should  share  their  husbands'  dinners, 
and  were   told   that   the   physicians    had   not  decided 


308  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

whether  beefsteak  were  wholesome.  The  answer  is, 
"Beefsteak  or  tripe,  yeast  or  saleratus,  which  you 
please.  But,  meanwhile,  what  is  good  enough  for  the 
wife  is  sjood  enousfh  for  the  husband." 


FOR   SELF-PROTECTION.  309 


LXXXI. 

FOR    SELF-PROTECTION". 

1  REMEMBER  to  have  read,  many  years  ago,  the  life 
of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  the  English  philanthropist.  He 
was  the  author  of  more  beneficent  legal  reforms  than 
any  man  of  his  day,  and  there  was  in  this  book  a  long 
list  of  the  changes  he  still  meant  to  bring  about.  It 
struck  me  very  much,  that,  among  these  proposed  re- 
forms, not  one  of  an}"  importance  referred  to  the  laws 
about  women. 

It  shows  —  what  all  experience  has  shown  —  that  no 
class  or  race  or  sex  can  safely  trust  its  protection  in 
any  hands  but  its  own.  The  laws  of  England  in  regard 
to  woman  were  then  so  bad  that  Lord  Brougham  after- 
wards said  they  needed  total  reconstruction,  if  they 
were  to  be  touched  at  all.  And  j^et  it  is  only  since 
woman  suffrage  began  to  be  talked  about,  that  the 
work  of  law-reform  has  really  taken  firm  hold.  In 
many  cases  in  America  the  beneficent  measures  are  di- 
rectly to  be  traced  to  some  appeal  from  feminine  advo- 
cates. Even  in  Canada,  as  stated  the  other  day  by  Dr. 
Cameron,  formerly  of  Toronto,  the  bill  protecting  the 
property  of  married  women  was  passed  under  the  imme- 
diate pressure  of  Lucy  Stone's  eloquence.  And,  even 
where  this  direct  agency  could  not  be  traced,  the  general 
fact  that  the  atmosphere  was  full  of  the  agitation  had 


310  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

much  to  do  with  all  the  reforms  that  took  place.  Legis- 
latures, unwilling  to  give  woman  the  ballot,  were  shamed 
into  giving  her  something.  The  chairman  of  the  judi- 
ciary committee  in  Rhode  Island  told  me,  that,  until  he 
heard  women  address  the  committee,  he  had  not  reflected 
upon  their  legal  disabilities,  or  thought  how  unjust  these 
were.  While  the  matter  was  left  to  the  other  sex  only, 
even  nien  like  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  forgot  the  wrongs  of 
woman.  When  she  began  to  advocate  her  own  cause 
men  also  waked  up. 

But  now  that  they  are  awake,  they  ask,  is  not  this 
sufficient?  Not  at  all.  If  an  agent  who  has  cheated 
you  surrenders  reluctantly  one-half  your  stolen  goods, 
3^ou  do  not  stop  there  and  say,  "It  is  enough.  Your 
intention  is  honorable.  Please  continue  my  agent  with 
increased  pay."  On  the  contrary,  you  say,  "Your 
admission  of  wrong  is  a  plea  of  guilty.  Give  me  the 
rest  of  what  is  mine."  There  is  no  defence  like  self- 
defence,  no  protection  like  self -protection. 

All  theories  of  chivalry  and  generosity  and  vicarious 
representation  fall  before  the  fact  that  woman  has  been 
grossly  wronged  by  man.  That  being  the  case,  the 
only  modest  and  honest  thing  for  man  to  do  is  to  say, 
' '  Henceforward  have  a  voice  in  making  your  own 
laws."  Till  this  is  done,  she  has  no  sure  safeguard, 
since  otherwise  the  same  men  who  made  the  old  bar- 
barous laws  may  at  any  time  restore  them. 

It  is  common  to'  say  that  woman  suffrage  will  make 
no  great  difference  ;  for  that  women  will  think  very  much 
as  men  do,  and  it  will  simply  double  the  vote  without 
varying  the  result.  About  many  matters  tliis  may  be 
true.     To  be  sure,  it  is  probable  that  on  questions  of 


FOB   SELF-PROTECTION.  311 

conscience,  like  slavery  and  temperance,  the  woman's 
vote  would  by  no  means  coincide  with  man's.  But 
grant  that  it  would.  The  fact  remains,  —  and  all  history 
shows  it,  —  that  on  all  that  concerns  her  own  protection 
a  woman  needs  her  own  A'ote.  AVould  a  woman  vote 
to  giA'e  her  husband  the  power  of  bequeathing  her 
children  to  the  control  and  guardianship  of  somebody 
else  ?  Would  a  woman  vote  to  sustain  the  law  by  which 
a  Massachusetts  chief  justice  bade  the  police  take  those 
crying  children  from  their  mother's  side  in  the  Boston 
court-room  a  few  years  ago,  and  hand  them  over  to  a 
comparative  stranger,  because  that  mother  had  married 
again?  You  might  as  well  ask  whether  the  colored 
vote  would  sustain  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Tariffs  or 
banks  may  come  or  go  the  same,  whether  the  voters  be 
white  or  black,  male  or  female.  But,  when  the  wrongs 
of  an  oppressed  class  or  sex  are  to  be  righted,  the  bal- 
lot is  the  only  guaranty.  After  they  have  gained  a 
potential  voice  for  themselves,  the  Su'  Samuel  Romillys 
will  remember  them. 


312  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXXXII. 

WOMANLY   STATESMANSHIP. 

The  newspapers  periodically  express  a  desire  to  know 
whether  women  have  given  evidence,  on  the  whole,  of 
superior  statesmanship  to  men.  There  are  constant 
requests  that  they  will  define  their  position  as  to  the 
tariff  and  the  fisheries  and  the  civil-service  question. 
If  they  do  not  speak,  it  is  naturally  assumed  that  they 
will  forever  after  hold  their  peace.  Let  us  see  how 
that  matter  stands. 

It  is  said  that  the  greatest  mechanical  skill  in  America 
is  to  be  found  among  professional  burglars  who  come 
here  from  England.  Suppose  one  of  these  men  were 
in  prison,  and  we  were  to  stand  outside  and  taunt  him 
through  the  window  :  ' '  Here  is  a  locomotive  engine  : 
why  do  you  not  mend  or  manage  it?  Here  is  a  steam 
printing-press  :  if  3^ou  know  any  thing,  set  it  up  for  me  ! 
You  a  mechanic,  when  you  have  not  proved  that  you 
understand  any  of  these  things  ?     Nonsense  !  ' ' 

But  Jack  Sheppard,  if  he  condescended  to  answer  us 
at  all,  would  coolly  say,  "Wait  a  while,  till  I  have 
finished  my  present  job.  Being  in  prison,  my  first 
business  is  to  get  out  of  prison.  Wait  till  I  have 
picked  this  lock,  and  mined  this  wall ;  wait  till  I  have 
made  a  saw  out  of  a  watch-spring,  and  a  ladder  out  of 
a  pair  of  blankets.     Let  me  do  my  first  task,  and  get 


W03fANLY  STATESMANSHIP.  313 

out  of  limbo,  and  then  see  if  your  little  printing-presses 
and  locomotives  are  too  puzzling  for  m}^  fingers." 

Politically  speaking,  woman  is  in  prison,  and  her 
first  act  of  skill  must  be  in  getting  through  the  wall. 
For  her  there  is  no  tariff  question,  no  question  of  the 
fisheries.  She  will  come  to  that  by  and  by,  if  you 
please  ;  but  for  the  present  her  statesmanship  must  be 
employed  nearer  home.  The  "civil-service  reform" 
in  which  she  is  most  concerned  is  a  reform  which  shall 
bring  her  in  contact  with  the  civil  service.  Her  politi- 
cal creed,  for  the  present,  is  limited  to  that  of  Sterne's 
starling  in  the  cage,  —  "I  can't  get  out."  If  she  is 
supposed  to  have  any  common-sense  at  all,  she  will 
best  show  it  by  beginning  at  the  point  where  she  is, 
instead  of  at  the  point  where  somebody  else  is.  She 
would  indeed  be  as  foolish  as  these  editors  think  her 
if  she  now  spent  her  brains  upon  the  tariff'  question, 
which  she  cannot  reach,  instead  of  upon  her  own  en- 
franchisement which  she  is  fast  reaching. 

The  woman  suffrage  movement  in  America,  in  all  its 
stages  and  subdivisions,  has  been  the  work  of  woman. 
No  doubt  men  have  helped  in  it :  much  of  the  talking 
has  been  done  by  them,  and  they  haA^e  furnished  many 
o^the  printed  documents.  But  the  energy,  the  methods, 
the  unwearied  purpose,  of  the  movement,  have  come 
from  women  :  they  have  led  in  all  councils  ;  they  have 
established  the  newspapers,  got  up  the  conventions, 
addressed  the  legislatures,  and  raised  the  money. 
Thirty  j^ears  have  shown,  with  whatever  temporary 
variations,  one  vast  wave  of  progress  toward  success, 
both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe.  Now,  success  is 
statesmanship. 


314  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

I  remember  well  the  shouts  of  laughter  that  used  to 
greet  the  anti-slavery  orators  when  they  claimed  that 
the  real  statesmen  of  the  country  were  not  the  Calhouns 
and  AYebsters,  who  spent  their  strength  in  trying  to 
sustain  slavery,  and  failed,  but  the  Garrisons,  who  de- 
voted their  lives  to  its  overthrow,  and  were  succeeding. 
Yet  who  now  doubts  this  ?  Tried  by  the  same  stand- 
ard, the  statesmanship  of  to-day  does  not  lie  in  the 
men  who  can  find  no  larger  questions  before  them  than 
those  which  concern  the  fisheries,  but  in  the  women 
whose  far-reaching  efforts  will  one  day  make  every  ex- 
isting voting-list  so  much  waste  paper. 

Of  course,  when  the  voting-lists  with  the  women's 
names  are  ready  to  be  printed,  it  will  be  interesting  to 
speculate  as  to  how  these  new  monarchs  of  our  destiny 
will  use  their  power.  For  myself,  a  long  course  of  ob- 
servation in  the  anti-slavery  and  woman  suffrage  move- 
ments has  satisfied  me  that  women  are  not  idiots,  and 
that,  on  the  whole,  when  they  give  their  minds  to  a 
question,  whether  moral  or  practical,  they  understand 
it  quite  as  readily  as  men.  In  the  anti-slavery  move- 
ment it  is  certain  that  a  woman,  Elizabeth  Heyrick, 
gave  the  first  impulse  to  its  direct  and  simple  solution 
in  England  ;  and  that  another  woman,  Mrs.  Stowe,  did 
more  than  any  man,  except  perhaps  Garrison  and  John 
Brown,  to  secure  its  right  solution  here.  There  was 
never  a  moment,  1  am  confident,  when  any  great  politi- 
cal question  growing  out  of  the  anti-slavery  struggle 
might  not  have  been  put  to  vote  more  safely  among 
the  women  of  New  England  than  among  the  clergy,  or 
the  lawyers,  or  the  college-professors.  If  they  have 
done  so  well  in  the  last  2;rcat  issue,  it  is  fair  to  assume. 


WOMANLY  STATESMANSHIP.  315 

that,  after  they  have  a  sufficient  inducement  to  study 
out  future  issues,  they  at  least  will  not  be  very  much 
behind  the  men. 

But  we  cannot  keep  it  too  clearly  in  view,  that  the 
whole  question,  whether  women  would  vote  better  or 
worse  than  men  on  general  questions,  is  a  minor  matter. 
It  was  equally  a  minor  matter  in  case  of  the  negroes. 
We  gave  the  negroes  the  ballot,  simpl}'  because  they 
needed  it  for  their  own  protection  ;  and  we  shall  by  and 
by  give  it  to  women  for  the  same  reason.  Tried  by 
that  test,  we  shall  find  ti\at  their  statesmanship  will  be 
genuine.  When  they  come  into  power,  drunken  hus- 
bands will  no  longer  control  their  wives'  earnings,  and  a 
chief  justice  will  no  longer  order  a  child  to  be  removed 
from  its  mother,  amid  its  tears  and  outcries,  merely 
because  that  mother  has  married  again.  And  if,  as  we 
iare  constantly  assured,  woman's  first  duty  is  to  her 
home  and  her  children,  she  may  count  it  a  good  begin- 
ning in  statesmanship  to  secure  to  herself  the  means  of 
protecting  both.  That  once  settled,  it  will  be  time 
enough  to  '-interview"  her  in  respect  to  the  proper 
rate  of  duty  on  pig-iron. 


316  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXXXIII. 

TOO   MUCH  PREDICTION. 

"  Seek  not  to  proticipate,"  says  Mrs.  Gamp,  the 
venerable  nurse  in  '•  Martin  Chuzzlewit  "  —  "  but  take 
'em  as  they  come,  and  as  they  go."  I  am  persuaded 
that  our  woman-suffrage  arguments  would  be  improved 
b}^  this  sage  counsel,  and  that  at  present  we  indulge  in 
too  many  bold  anticipations. 

Is  there  not  altogether  too  much  tendenc}^  to  pre- 
dict what  women  will  do  when  they  vote  ?  Could  that 
good  time  come  to-morrow,  we  should  be  startled  to 
find  to  how  many  different  opinions  and  "  causes  "  the 
new  voters  were  already  pledged.  One  speaker  wishes 
that  women  should  be  emancipated,  because  of  the 
fidelity  with  which*  they  are  sure  to  support  certain 
desirable  measures,  as  peace,  order,  freedom,  temper- 
ance, righteousness,  and  judgment  to  come.  Then 
the  next  speaker  has  his  or  her  schedule  of  political 
virtues,  and  is  equally  confident  that  women,  if  once 
enfranchised,  will  guarantee  clear  majorities  for  them 
all.  The  trouble  is,  that  we  thus  mortgage  this  new 
party  of  the  future,  past  relief,  beyond  possibility  of 
payment,  and  incur  the  ridicule  of  the  unsanctified  by 
committing  our  cause  to  a  great  many  contradictory 
pledges. 

I  know  an  able  and  Li'^h-minded  woman  of  foreicrn 


TOO  MUCH  PREDICTION.  31 T 

birth,  who  courageousl}^  but  as  I  think  mistakenly, 
calls  herself  an  atheist,  and  who  has  for  years  advo' 
cated  woman-suffrage  as  the  only  antidote  to  the  rule  of 
the  clergy.  On  the  other  hand,  an  able  speaker  in  the 
late  Boston  convention  advocated  the  same  thing  as 
the  best  way  of  defeating  atheism,  and  securing  the 
positive  assertion  of  religion  by  the.  community.  Both 
cannot  be  correct :  neither  is  entitled  to  speak  for 
woman.  That  being  the  case,  would  it  not  be  better 
to  keep  clear  of  this  dangerous  ground  of  prediction, 
and  keep  to  the  argument  based  on  rights  and  needs  ? 
If  our  theory  of  government  be  worth  any  thing, 
woman  has  the  same  right  to  the  ballot  that  man  has  : 
she  certainly  needs  it  as  much  for  self-defence.  How 
she  will  use  it,  when  she  gets  it,  is  her  own  affair.  It 
may  be  that  she  will  use  it  more  wisely  than  her  broth- 
ers ;  but  I  am  satisfied  to  believe  that  she  will  use  it  as 
well.  Let  us  not  attribute  infallible  wisdom  and  virtue, 
even  to  women ;  for,  as  dear  Mrs.  Poyser  says  in 
Adam  Bede,  "God  Almighty  made  some  of  'em  fool- 
ish, to  match  the  men." 

It  is  common  to  assume,  for  instance,  that  all  women 
by  nature  favor  peace  ;  and  that,  q\q\\  if  thc}^  do  not 
always  seem  to  promote  it  in  their  social  walk  and  con- 
versation, the}^  certainly  will  in  their  political.  AYhen 
we  consider  how  all  the  pleasing  excitements,  achieve- 
ments, and  glories  of  war,  such  as  they  are,  accrue  to 
men  only,  and  how  large  a  part  of  the  miseries  are 
brought  home  to  women,  it  might  seem  that  their  vote 
on  this  matter,  at  least,  would  be  a  sure  thing.  Thus 
far  the  theory :  the  fact  being  that  we  have  but  just 
emero'ed  from  a  civil  war  which  convulsed  the  nation. 


318  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

and  cost  half  a  million  lives  ;  and  which  was,  from  the 
very  beginning,  fomented,  stimulated,  and  applauded, 
at  least  on  one  side,  by  the  united  voice  of  the  women. 
It  will  be  generally  admitted  by  those  wiio  know,  that, 
but  for  the  women  of  the  seceding  States,  the  war  of 
the  Rebellion  would  have  been  waged  more  feebly,  been 
sooner  ended,  and  far  more  easily  forgotten.  Nay,  I 
was  told  a  few  days  since  by  an  al^le  Southern  lawyer, 
who  was  long  the  mayor  of  one  of  the  largest  Southern 
cities,  that  in  his  opinion  the  practice  of  duelling  — 
which  is  an  epitome  of  war  —  owes  its  continued  exist- 
ence at  the  South  to  a  sustaining  public  sentiment 
among  the  women. 

Again,  where  the  sympathy  of  women  is  wholly  on 
the  side  of  right,  it  is  by  no  means  safe  to  assume  that 
their  mode  of  enforcing  that  sentiment  will  be  equally 
judicious.  Take,  for  instance,  the  temperance  cause. 
It  is  usual  to  assume  that  women  are  a  unit  on  that 
question.  When  we  look  at  the  two  extremes  of 
society, — the  fine  lady  pressing  wine  upon  her  New 
Year's  visitors,  and  the  Irishwoman  laying  in  a  family 
supply  of  whiskey  to  last  over  Sunda}^  —  the  assump- 
tion seems  hasty.  But  grant  it.  Is  it  equally  sure, 
that  when  woman  takes  hold  of  that  most  difficult  of  all 
legislation,  the  license  and  prohibitory  laws,  she  will 
handle  them  more  wisely  than  men  have  done?  Will 
her  more  ardent  zeal  solve  the  problem  on  which  so  much 
zeal  has  already  been  lavished  in  vain  ?  In  large  cities, 
for  instance,  where  there  is  already  more  law  than  can 
be  enforced,  will  her  additional  ballots  afford  the  means 
to  enforce  it?  It  may  be  so;  but  it  seems  wiser  not 
to  predict  nor  to  anticipate,  but  to  wait  and  hope. 


TOO   MUCH  PBEDICTIOX.  319 

It  is  no  reproach  on  woman  to  say  that  she  is  not  in- 
fallible on  particular  questions.  There  is  much  reason 
to  suppose  that  in  politics,  as  in  every  other  sphere,  the 
joint  action  of  the  sexes  will  be  better  and  wiser  than 
that  of  either  singly.  It  seems  obvious  that  the  ex- 
periment of  republican  government  will  be  more  fairly 
tried  when  one-half  the  race  is  no  longer  disfranchised. 
It  is  quite  certain,  at  any  rate,  that  no  class  can  trust 
its  rights  to  the  mercy  and  chivahy  of  any  other,  but 
that,  the  weaker  it  is,  the  more  it  needs  all  political 
aids  and  securities  for  self-protection.  Thus  far,  we 
are  on  safe  ground ;  and  here,  as  it  seems  to  me,  the 
claim  for  suffrage  may  securely  rest.  To  go  farther  in 
our  assertions,  seems  to  me  unsafe,  although  many 
of  our  wisest  and  most  eloquent  may  differ  from  me ; 
and,  the  nearer  we  approach  success,  the  more  impor- 
tant it  is  to  look  to  our  weapons.  It  is  a  plausible  and 
tempting  argument,  to  claim  suffrage  for  woman  on 
the  ground  that  she  is  an  angel ;  but  I  think  it  will 
prove  wiser,  in  the  end,  to  claim  it  for  her  as  being 
human. 


320  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXXXIY. 

FIRST-CLASS   CARRIAGES. 

In  a  hotly  contested  municipal  election,  the  other 
day,  an  active  political  manager  was  telling  me  his  tac- 
tics. "We  have  to  send  carriages  for  some  of  the 
voters,"  he  said.  "-First-class  carriages!  If  we 
undertake  to  wait  on  'em,  we  must  do  it  in  good  shape, 
and  not  leave  the  best  carriages  to  be  hired  by  the 
other  party." 

I  am  not  much  given  to  predicting  just  what  will 
happen  when  women  vote ;  but  I  confidently  assert 
that  they  will  be  taken  to  the  polls,  if  they  wish,  in 
first-class  carriages.  If  the  best  horses  are  to  be  har- 
nessed, and  the  best  cushions  selected,  and  every  panel 
of  the  coach  rubbed  till  3'ou  can  see  your  face  in  it, 
merely  to  accommodate  some  elderly  man  who  lives 
two  blocks  away,  and  could  walk  to  the  polls  very 
easily,  then  how  much  more  will  these  luxuries  be 
placed  at  the  service  of  every  woman,  young  or  old, 
whose  presence  at  the  polls  is  made  doubtful  by  mud, 
or  snow,  or  the  prospect  of  a  shower  ! 

But  the  carriage  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  polite 
attentions  that  will  soon  appear.  When  we  see  tlie 
transformation  undergone  by  every  ferrj-boat  and 
every  railway-station,  so  soon  as  it  comes  to  be  fre- 
quented by  women,  who  can  doubt  that  voting-places 


FIBST-CLASS   CAERIAGES.  321 

will  experience  the  same  change?  They  will  soon 
have  —  at  least  in  the  "ladies'  department," — ele- 
gance instead  of  discomfort,  beauty  for  ashes,  plenty 
of  rocking-chairs,  and  no  need  of  spittoons.-^  ^  ery 
possibly  they  may  have  all  the  modern  conveniences 
and  inconveniences,  —  furnace-registers,  tea-kettles, 
Washington-pies,  and  a  3^ouug  lady  to  give  checks  for 
bundles.  AVho  knows  what  elaborate  comforts,  what 
queenly  luxuries,  ma}'  be  offered  to  women  at  voting- 
places,  when  the  time  has  finally  arrived  to  sue  for 
their  votes  ? 

The  common  impression  has  always  been  quite  dif- 
ferent from  this.  People  look  at  the  coarseness  and 
dirt  now  visible  at  so  many  voting- places,  and  say, 
' '  Would  you  expose  women  to  all  that  ?  ' '  But  these 
places  are  not  dirtier  than  a  railway  smoking-car ;  and 
there  is  no  more  coarseness  than  in  any  ferry-boat 
which  is,  for  whatever  reason,  used  by  men  only. 
You  do  not  look  into  those  places,  and  say  with  indig- 
nation, ''  Never,  if  I  can  help  it,  shall  m}^  wife  or  my 
beloved  great-grandmother  travel  by  steamboat  or  by 
rail !  "  You  know  that  with  these  exemplary  relatives 
will  enter  order  and  quiet,  carpets  and  curtains,  brooms 
and  dusters.  Why  should  it  be  otherwise  with  ward- 
rooms and  town-halls? 

There  is  not  an  atom  more  of  intrinsic  difficulty  in 
providing  a  decorous  ladies'  room  for  a  voting-place, 
than  for  a  post-office  or  a  railway-station  ;  and  it  is  as 
simple  a  thing  to  vote  a  ticket  as  to  buy  one.     This 

1  Since  this  was  written,  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  has  passed, 
with  little  opposition,  a  law  prohibiting  smoking  at  voting-places, — an 
explicit  fulfilment  of  this  prophecy. 


322  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

being  thus  easily  practicable,  all  men  will  desire  to  pro- 
vide it.  And  the  example  of  the  first-class  carriages 
shows  that  the  parties  will  vie  with  each  other  in  these 
pleasing  arrangements.  They  will  be  driven  to  it, 
whether  the}^  wish  it  or  not.  The  party  which  has 
most  consistently  and  resolutely  kept  woman  away 
from  the  ballot-box  will  be  the  very  party  compelled, 
for  the  sake  of  self-preservation,  to  make  her  "  rights  " 
agreeable  to  her  when  once  she  gets  them.  A  few 
stupid  or  noisy  men  may  indeed  try  to  make  the  polls 
unattractive  to  her,  the  very  first  time  ;  but  the  result 
of  this  little  experiment  will  be  so  disastrous  that  the 
offenders  will  be  sternly  suppressed  by  their  own  party- 
leaders,  before  another  election-day  comes.  It  will 
soon  become  clear,  that,  of  all  possible  waj's  of  losing 
voters,  the  surest  lies  in  treating  women  rudely. 

Lucy  Stone  tells  a  story  of  a  good  man  in  Kansas, 
who,  having  done  all  he  could  to  prevent  women  from 
being  allowed  to  vote  on  school  questions,  was  finally 
comforted,  when  that  measure  passed,  by  the  thought 
that  he  should  at  least  secure  his  wife's  vote  for  a  pet 
schoolhouse  of  his  own.  Election-day  came,  and  the 
newly  enfranchised  matron  showed  the  most  culpable 
indifference  to  her  privileges.  She  made  breakfast  as 
usual,  went  about  her  housework,  and  did  on  that  per- 
ilous day  precisely  the  things  that  her  anxious  hus- 
band had  always  predicted  that  women  never  would  do 
under  such  circumstances.  His  hints  and  advice  found 
no  response  ;  and  nothing  short  of  the  best  pair  of 
horses  and  the  best  wagon  finally  suflliced  to  take  the 
farmer's  wife  to  the  polls.  I  am  not  the  least  afraid 
that  women  will  find  voting   a   rude   or  disagreeable 


FIRST-CLASS   CARRIAGES.  323 

arrangement.  There  is  more  danger  of  their  being 
treated  too  well,  and  being  too  much  attacked  and  al- 
lured by  these  cheap  cajoleries.  But  women  are  pretty 
shrewd,  and  can  probably  be  trusted  to  go  to  the  polls, 
even  in  first-class  carriaores. 


324  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXXXV. 

EDUCATIOX  via  SUFFPvACxE. 

I  KNOW  a  rich  bachelor  of  large  proper!}^,  who  fa- 
tigues his  friends  by  perpetual  denuuciatious  of  every 
thing  American,  and  especially  of  universal  suffrage. 
He  rarely  votes  ;  and  I  was  much  amazed,  when  the 
popular  vote  was  to  be  taken  on  building  an  expensive 
schoolhouse,  to  see  him  go  to  the  polls,  and  vote  in  the 
affirmative.  On  being  asked  his  reason,  he  explained, 
that,  while  we  labored  under  the  calamity  of  universal 
(male)  suffrage,  he  thought  it  best  to  mitigate  its  evils 
by  educating  the  voters.  In  short,  he  wished,  as  Mr. 
Lowe  said  in  England  when  the  last  Reform  Bill 
passed,  "  to  prevail  upon  our  future  masters  to  learn 
their  alphabets." 

These  motives  may  not  be  generous  ;  but  the  school- 
houses,  when  they  are  built,  are  just  as  useful.  Even 
girls  get  the  benefit  of  them,  though  the  long  delay  in 
many  places  before  girls  got  their  share  came  in  part 
from  the  want  of  this  obvious  stimulus.  It  is  uni- 
versal male  suffrage  that  guarantees  schoolhouse  and 
school.  The  most  selfish  man  understands  that  argu- 
ment:  "We  must  educate  the  masses,  if  it  is  only  to 
keep  them  from  our  throats." 

But  there  is  a  wider  way  in  which  suffrage  guarantees 
education.     At  every  election-time,  political  informa- 


EDUCATION    VTA    SUFFRAGE.  325 

tion  is  poured  upon  the  whole  voting  community,  till  it 
is  deluged.  Presses  run  night  and  day  to  print  news- 
paper extras ;  clerks  sit  up  all  night  to  frank  con- 
gressional speeches ;  the  most  eloquent  men  in  the 
community  expound  the  most  difficult  matters  to  the 
ignorant.  Of  course  each  party  affords  only  its  own 
point  of  view  ;  but  every  man  has  a  neighbor  who  is 
put  under  treatment  l^y  some  other  party,  and  who  is 
constantly  attacking  all  who  will  listen  to  his  provoking 
and  pestilent  counter-statements.  All  the  common- 
school  education  of  the  United  States  does  not  equal 
the  education  of  election-da}^ ;  and,  as  in  some  States 
elections  are  held  very  often,  this  popular  university 
seems  to  be  kept  in  session  almost  the  whole  year 
round.  The  consequence  is  a  remarkable  average  pop- 
ular knowledge  of  political  affairs,  —  a  training  which 
Ainericau  women  now  miss,  but  which  will  come  to 
them  with  the  ballot. 

And  in  still  another  way,  there  will  be  an  education 
coming  to  woman  from  the  right  of  suffrage.  It  will 
come  from  her  own  sex,  proceeding  from  highest  to 
lowest.  We  often  hear  it  said,  that,  after  enfranchise- 
ment, the  more  educated  women  will  not  vote,  while 
the  ignorant  will.  But  Mrs.  Howe  admirably  pointed 
out,  at  a  Philadelphia  convention,  that,  the  moment 
women  have  the  ballot,  it  will  become  the  pressing 
duty  of  the  more  educated  women,  even  in  self-protec- 
tion, to  train  the  rest.  The  very  fact  of  the  danger 
will  be  a  stimulus  to  duty,  with  women,  as  it  already  is 
with  men. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  rather  childish,  in  a  man 
of  superior  education,  or  talent,  or  wealth,  to  complain 


326  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

that  when  election-day  comes  he  has  no  more  votes 
than  the  man  who  plants  his  potatoes  or  puts  in  his 
coal.  The  truth  is,  that  under  the  most  thorough 
S3"stem  of  universal  suffrage  the  man  of  wealth  or 
talent  or  natural  leadership  has  still  a  disproportionate 
influence,  still  casts  a  hundred  votes  where  the  poor 
or  ignorant  or  feeble  man  throws  but  one.  Even  the 
outrages  of  New  York  elections  turned  out  to  be  caused 
by  the  fact  that  the  leading  rogues  had  used  their 
brains  and  energy,  while  the  men  of  character  had  not. 
When  it  came  to  the  point,  it  was  found  that  a  few 
caricatures  by  Nast  and  a  few  columns  of  figures  in 
the  Times  were  more  than  a  match  for  all  the  repeaters 
of  the  ring.  It  is  alwaj^s  so.  Andrew  Johnson,  with 
all  the  patronage  of  the  nation,  had  not  the  influence 
of  "  Nasby "  with  his  one  newspaper.  The  whole 
Chinese  question  was  perceptibly  and  instantly  modified 
when  Harte  wrote  "  The  Heathen  Chinee." 

These  things  being  so,  it  indicates  feebleness  or 
d3"spepsia  when  an  educated  man  is  heard  whining, 
about  election-time,  with  his  fears  of  ignorant  voting. 
It  is  his  business  to  enlighten  and  control  that  igno- 
rance. With  a  voice  and  a  pen  at  his  command,  with 
a  town-hall  in  every  town  for  the  one,  and  a  newspaper 
in  every  village  for  the  other,  he  has  such  advantages 
over  his  ignorant  neighbors  that  the  only  doubt  is 
whether  his  privileges  are  not  greater  than  he  deserves. 
For  one,  in  writing  'for  the  press,  I  am  impressed  by 
the  undue  greatness,  not  by  the  littleness,  of  the  power 
I  wield.  And  what  is  true  of  men  will  be  true  of 
women.  If  the  educated  women  of  America  have  not 
brains  or  energy  enough  to  control,  in  the   long-run, 


EDUCATION    VIA    SUFFRAGE.  327 

the  votes  of  the  ignorant  women  around  them,  they 
will  deserve  a  severe  lesson,  and  will  be  sure,  like  the 
men  in  New  York,  to  receive  it.  And  thenceforward 
they  will  educate  and  guide  that  ignorance,  instead  of 
evadino^  or  crinoino-  before  it. 

But  I  have  no  fear  about  the  matter.  It  is  a  libel 
on  American  women  to  say  that  they  will  not  go  any- 
where or  do  any  thing  which  is  for  the  good  of  their 
children  and  their  husbands.  Travel  AYest  on  any  of 
our  great  lines  of  railroad,  and  see  what  women  under- 
go in  transporting  their  households  to  their  new  homes. 
See  the  watching  and  the  feeding,  and  the  endless  an- 
swers to  the  endless  questions,  and  the  toil  to  keep 
little  Sarah  warm,  and  little  Johnny  cool,  and  the  baby 
comfortable.  What  a  hungry,  tired,  jaded,  forlorn 
mass  of  humanity  it  is,  as  the  sun  rises  on  it  each 
morning,  in  the  soiled  and  breathless  railway-car  !  Yet 
that  household  group  is  America  in  the  making  ;  those 
are  the  future  kings  and  queens,  the  little  princes  and 
princesses,  of  tliis  land.  Now,  is  the  mother  who  has 
undergone  for  the  transportation  of  these  children  all 
this  enormous  labor,  to  shrink  at  her  journey's  end 
from  the  slight  additional  labor  of  going  to  the  polls  to 
vote  whether  those  little  ones  shall  have  schools  or 
rumshops  ?  The  thought  is  an  absurdity.  A  few  fine 
ladies  in  cities  will  fear  to  spoil  their  silk  dresses,  as  a 
few  foppish  gentlemen  now  fear  for  their  broadcloth. 
But  the  mass  of  intelligent  American  women  will  vote, 
as  do  the  mass  of  men. 


328  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


LXXXVI. 

"OFF   WITH   HER  HEAD!" 

In  "Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland,"  the  Queen 
of  Henrts  settles  all  disputes  at  croquet  by  ordering 
somebody's  head  to  be  taken  off.  It  is  the  old  royal 
remedy.  The  Roman  Tarquin.  when  his  son  sent  to  ask 
him  the  best  way  of  reducing  a  discontented  city,  merely 
slashed  off  the  heads  of  the  tallest  poppies,  as  he  walked 
in  the  garden.  The  3'oung  man  took  the  hint,  and  per- 
formed a  similar  process  upon  the  leading  citizens. 

Every  year  makes  it  plainer  that  the  community  must 
imitate  Tarquinius  Super  bus  and  the  Queen  of  Hearts 
if  it  wishes  to  get  rid  of  the  woman  suffrage  movement. 
80  long  as  every  woman  favors  it  whenever  she  gets 
her  head  above  a  certain  point,  so  long  those  conspicu- 
ous heads  must  be  recognized.  You  must  either  put 
them  on  the  voting-list,  or  on  the  list  ordered  for  inmie- 
diate  execution  :  there  is  no  middle  ground. 

There  are  the  women  who  write  books,  for  instance. 
When  authorship  first  came  up  among  the  women  of 
America,  they  not  only  claimed  nothing  more  than  the 
mere  privilege  of  havmg  brains,  but  the}"  almost  apolo- 
gized for  that.  Their  early  authors,  as  ]Mrs.  Child 
and  Mrs.  Leslie,  had  a  way  of  preparing  a  cooker}"- 
book  apiece,  as  a  propitiation  to  the  tyrant  man,  before 
proceeding:  to  what  is  called  "the  intellectual  feast." 


"OFF   WITH  HER   HEAD!''  329 

They  held,  with  Miss  Bremer,  that  yon  can  get  any 
thing  you  like  from  a  man  if  you  will  onl}^  have  some- 
thing nice  to  pop  into  his  mouth.  ]Mrs.  Sarah  J.  Hale, 
in  her  "  Woman's  Record,"  published  twenty  years  ago, 
adopted  a  different  form  of  submission.  She  seemed 
very  anxious  to  prove  that  women  had  taken  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  world  ;  but  also  to  sliow,  that,  if  they 
were  only  forgiven  for  this,  they  would  never,  never, 
never  make  themselves  any  more  prominent.  It  is  but 
within  a  few  j^ears  that  literary  women  have  dared  to  go 
beyond  literature,  and  ask  for  a  vote  besides. 

But  now,  with  what  a  terrible  confidence  they  come  to 
the  demand  for  suffrage  when  the}"  acquire  voice  enough 
to  make  themselves  heard  !  Mrs.  Stowe  helps  to  free 
Uncle  Tom  in  his  cabin,  and  then  strikes  for  the  freedom 
of  women  in  her  own  "Hearth  and  Home."  Mrs. 
Howe  writes  the  "Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  and 
keeps  on  writing  more  battle-hymns  in  behalf  of  her 
own  sex.  Miss  Alcott  not  onW  delineates  "  Little 
Women,"  but  wishes  to  emancipate  them.  Miss  Phelps 
desires  to  see  the  "Gates  Ajar"  for  her  sex,  both  in 
heaven  and  on  earth.  Mrs.  Child,  who  risked  her 
/iterary  popularity  in  early  life  by  her  ' '  Appeal  for  that 
Class  of  Americans  called  Africans,"  was  as  ready  to 
risk  it  again  for  that  class  of  Americans  called  women. 

Of  course,  there  are  social  circles  in  America  where 
all  desire  for  leadership  on  the  part  of  literary  women 
would  be  repudiated ;  na}',  where  the  fact  that  a 
woman  had  written  a  book  would  imply  a  loss  of  caste. 
When  Karl  von  Beethoven  signed  himself  "  Gutshesitz- 
er,"  or  "  land  proprietor,"  his  brother  Ludwig  signed 
himself   '^  Illrnbesitzcr^''  or   "proprietor  of  a  brain." 


330  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

Posterity  remembers  only  the  great  musical  composer ; 
yet,  doubtless,  to  the  society  of  that  period,  the  stupid 
elder  brother  was  by  far  the  greater  man.  Such  per- 
versities cannot  be  helped  ;  but  I  write  for  reasonable 
people.  Among  the  women  who  dance  the  German, 
woman  suffrage  may  be  just  now  unpopular  ;  but  the 
women  who  translate  German  will  in  the  long-run  have 
most  influence,  and  their  verdict  seems  to  tend  the 
other  way.  It  is  said  that  the  leading  dancer  among 
the  young  men  of  one  of  our  cities  was  transformed 
into  an  equally  prominent  lawyer  by  a  single  suggestion 
from  an  elder  sister,  that  it  was  ' '  better  to  be  a  man  of 
books  than  a  man  of  toes."  It  is  likely  that  America 
will  be  more  influenced  at  last  by  the  women  of  heads 
than  by  the  women  of  heels. 


FOLLOW   YOUR   LEADERS,  331 


LXXXVII. 

FOLLOW  YOUR   LEADERS. 

"  There  go  thirt}^  thousand  men,"  shouted  the  Port- 
uguese, as  Wellington,  with  a  few  staff-ofFicers,  rode 
along  the  mountain-side.  The  action  of  the  leaders' 
minds,  in  any  direction,  has  a  value  out  of  all  proportion 
to  their  numbers.  In  a  campaign,  there  is  a  council 
of  officers, — Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheridan  per- 
haps. They  are  but  a  trifling  minority,  yet  what  they 
plan  the  whole  army  will  do ;  and  such  is  the  faith  in 
a  real  leader,  that,  were  all  the  restraints  of  discipline 
for  the  moment  relaxed,  the  rank  and  file  would  still 
follow  his  judgment.  What  a  few  general  officers  see 
to  be  the  best  to-da3^  the  sergeants  and  corporals  and 
private  soldiers  will  usually  see  to  be  best  to-morrow. 

In  peace,  also,  there  is  a  silent  leadership ;  only 
that  in  peace,  as  there  is  more  time  to  spare,  the 
leaders  are  expected  to  persuade  the  rank  and  file, 
instead  of  commanding  them.  Yet  it  comes  to  the 
same  thing  in  the  end.  The  movement  begins  with 
certain  guides,  and,  if  you  wish  to  know  the  future, 
keep  your  eye  on  them.  If  you  wisli  to  know  what  is 
already  decided,  ask  the  majority ;  but,  if  j^ou  wish  to 
find  out  what  is  likely  to  be  done  next,  ask  the  leaders. 

It  is  constantly  said  that  the  majority  of  women  do 
not  yet  desire  to  vote,  and  it  is  true.     But,  to  find  out 


332  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    n^OMEN. 

whether  they  are  likely  to  wish  for  it,  we  must  keep 
our  eyes  on  the  women  who  lead  their  sex.  The  repre- 
sentative women,  —  those  who  naturally  stand  for  the 
rest,  those  most  eminent  for  knowledge  and  self-devo- 
tion, —  how  do  they  view  the  thing?  The  rank  and  file 
do  not  yet  demand  the  ballot,  you  say  ;  but  how  is  it 
with  the  general  officers? 

Now,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  about  which  those  who 
have  watclied  this  movement  for  twenty  years  can 
hardly  be  mistaken,  that  almost  any  woman  who 
reaches  a  certain  point  of  intellectual  or  moral  develop- 
ment will  presently  be  found  desiring  the  ballot  for  her 
sex.  If  this  be  so,  it  predicts  the  future.  It  is  the 
judgment  of  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheridan  as 
against  that  of  the  average  private  soldier  of  the  Two 
Hundredth  Infantry.  Set  aside,  if  you  please,  the  spe- 
cialists of  this  particular  agitation, — those  who  were 
first  knoAvn  to  the  public  through  its  advocacy.  There 
is  no  just  reason  wh}^  they  should  be  set  aside,  yet  con- 
cede that  for  a  moment.  Tlie  fact  remains  that  the 
ablest  women  in  the  land  —  those  who  were  recognized 
as  ablest  in  other  spheres,  before  they  took  this  par- 
ticular duty  upon  them  —  are  extremely  apt  to  assume 
this  cross  when  they  reach  a  certain  stage  of  develop- 
ment. 

When  Margaret  Fuller  first  came  forward  into  litera- 
ture, she  supposed  that  literature  was  all  she  wanted. 
It  was  not  till  she  came  to  write  upon  woman's  position 
that  she  discovered  what  woman  needed.  Clara  Bar- 
ton, driving  her  ambulance  or  her  supply-wagon  at  the 
battle's  edge,  did  not  foresee,  perhaps,  that  she  should 
make  that  touching  appeal,  when  the  battle  was  over, 


FOLLOW   YOUR   LEADERS.  333 

imploring  her  own  enfranchisement  from  the  soldiers 
she  had  befriended.  Lydia  Maria  Child,  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Louisa  Alcott,  came  to 
tlie  claim  for  the  ballot  earlier  than  a  million  others, 
1)'v.'cau.'e  tiiey  were  the  intellectual  leaders  of  American 
womanhood.  They  saw  farthest,  because  they  were  in 
the  highest  place.  Thc}^  were  the  recognized  repre- 
sentatives of  their  sex  before  they  gave  in  their  adhe- 
sion to  the  new  demand.  Their  judgment  is  as  the 
judgment  of  the  council  of  officers  ;  while  Flora  Mc- 
Flimsey's  opinion  is  as  the  opinion  of  John  Smith, 
unassigned  recruit.  But,  if  the  generals  make  arrange- 
ments for  a  battle,  the  chance  is  that  John  Smith  will 
have  to  take  a  hand  in  it,  or  else  run  away. 

It  is  a  rare  thing  for  the  petition  for  suffrage  from 
any  town  to  comprise  the  majority  of  women  in  that 
town.  It  makes  no  difference  :  if  there  are  few  wo- 
men in  the  town  who  want  to  vote,  there  is  as  nuich 
propriety  in  their  voting  as  if  there  were  ten  millions, 
so  long  as  the  majority  are  equally  protected  in  their 
right  to  stay  at  home.  But,  when  the  names  of  peti- 
tioners come  to  be  weighed  as  well  as  counted,  the 
character,  the  purit3%  the  intelligence,  the  social  and 
domestic  value,  of  the  petitioners,  is  seldom  denied. 
The  women  who  wish  to  vote  are  not  the  idle,  the  igno- 
rant, the  narrow-minded,  or  the  vicious ;  they  are 
not  '  •  the  dangerous  classes  :  ' '  they  represent  the  best 
class  in  the  community,  when  tried  by  the  highest 
standard.  They  are  the  natural  leaders.  What  they 
now  see  to  be  right,  will  also  be  perceived  even  by  the 
foolish  and  the  ignorant  by  and  by. 

In  a  poultry-3^ard  in  spring,  when  the  first  brood  of 


334  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

ducklings  go  toddling  to  the  water-side,  no  doubt  all 
the  younger  or  feebler  broods,  just  hatched  out  of 
similar  eggs,  think  these  innovators  dreadfully  mis- 
taken. "You  are  out  of  place,"  they  feebly  pipe. 
"  .See  how  ha'ppy  we  are  in  our  safe  nests.  Perhaps, 
b}^  and  by,  when  properly  introduced  into  society,  we 
may  run  about  a  little  on  land,  but  to  swim  !  —  never  !  " 
Meanwhile  their  elder  kindred  are  splashing  and  div- 
ing in  ecstasy ;  and,  so  surely  as  they  are  born  duck- 
lings, all  the  rest  will  swim  in  their  turn.  The  instinct 
of  the  first  duck  solves  the  problem  for  all  the  rest.  It 
is  a  mere  question  of  time.  Sooner  or  later,  all  the 
broods  in  the  most  conservative  yard  will  follow  their 
leaders. 


TO    UXDEBSTAND  POLITICS.  335 


LXXXVIIL 

HOW   TO     MAKE   WOMEX     UXDERSTAXD     POLI- 
TICS. 

Ax  English  member  of  Parliament  said  in  a  speech, 
some  years  ago,  that  the  stupidest  man  had  a  clearer 
understanding  of  political  questions  than  the  brightest 
woman.  Pie  did  not  find  it  convenient  to  say  what  must 
be  the  condition  of  a  nation  which  for  many  years  has 
had  a  woman  for  its  sovereign  ;  but  he  certainly  said 
bluntly  what  many  men  feel.  It  is  not  indeed  very 
hard  to  find  the  source  of  this  feeling.  It  is  not 
merely  that  women  are  inexperienced  in  questions  of 
finance  or  administrative  practice,  for  many  men  are 
equally  ignorant  of  these.  But  it  is  undoubtedly  true 
of  a  large  class  of  more  fundamental  questions.  —  as, 
for  instance,  of  some  now  pending  at  Washington.  — 
which  even  many  clear-headed  women  find  it  hard  to 
understand,  while  men  of  far  less  general  training  com- 
prehend them  entirely.  Questions  of  the  distribution 
of  power,  for  instance,  between  the  executive,  judicial, 
and  legislative  branches  of  government, — or  between 
the  L'nited  States  government  and  those  of  the  sepa- 
rate States, — belong  to  the  class  I  mean.  Many 
women  of  great  intelligence  show  a  hazy  indistinct- 
ness of  views  when  the  question  arises  whether  it  is 
the  business  of  the  General  Government  to  preserve 


336       co:mmon  sense  about  women. 

order  at  the  voting-places  at  a  congressional  election, 
for  instance,  as  the  Republicans  hold  ;  or  whether  it 
should  be  left  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  the  State  offi- 
cials, as  the  Democrats  maintain.  Most  women  would 
probably  say  that  so  long  as  order  Avas  preserved,  it 
made  very  little  difference  who  did  it.  Yet,  if  one 
goes  into  a  shoe-shop  or  a  blacksmith's  shop,  one  may 
hear  just  these  questions  discussed  in  all  their  bearings 
by  uneducated  men,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  they  in- 
volve a  principle.  AYhy  is  this  difference?  Does  it 
show  some  constitutional  inferiority  in  women,  as  to 
this  particular  faculty  ? 

The  question  is  best  solved  b}^  considering  a  case 
somewhat  parallel.  The  South  Carolina  negroes  were 
considered  very  stupid,  even  by  many  who  knew  them  ; 
and  thc}'^  certainly  were  densely  ignorant  on  many  sub- 
jects. Put  face  to  face  with  a  difficult  point  of  finance 
legislation,  I  think  they  would  have  been  found  to 
know  even  less  about  it  than  I  do.  Yet  the  abolition 
of  slavery  was  held  in  those  days  by  many  great  states- 
men to  be  a  subject  so  difficult  that  they  shrank  from 
discussing  it ;  and  nevertheless  I  used  to  find  that 
these  ignorant  men  understood  it  quite  clearly  in  all 
its  bearings.  Offer  a  bit  of  sophistry  to  them,  try  to 
blind  them  with  false  logic  on  this  subject,  and  they 
would  detect  it  as  promptly,  and  answer  it  as  keenly,  as 
Garrison  or  Phillips  would  have  done  ;  and,  indeed, 
they  would  give  ver}^  much  the  same  answers.  AYhat 
was  the  reason  ?  Not  that  they  were  half  wise  and  half 
stupid  ;  but  that  they  were  dull  where  their  own  inter- 
ests had  not  trained  them,  and  they  were  sharp  and 
keen  where  their  own  interests  were  concerned. 


TO    UyUEBSTAXD   POLITICS.  337 

I  have  no  doubt  that  it  will  be  so  with  women  when 
they  vote.  About  some  things  they  will  be  slow  to 
learn  ;  but,  about  all  that  immediately  concerns  them- 
selves, they  will  know  more  at  the  very  beginning  than 
many  wise  men  have  learned  since  the  world  began. 
How  long  it  took  for  English-speaking  men  to  correct, 
even  partially,  the  iniquities  of  the  old  common  law  !  — 
but  a  parliament  of  women  would  have  set  aside  at  a 
sinoie  sittino-  the  alleo-ed  right  of  the  husband  to  cor- 
rect  his  wife  with  a  stick  no  bigger  than  his  thumb. 
It  took  the  men  of  a  certain  State  of  this  Union  a  good 
many  years  to  see  that  it  was  an  outrage  to  confiscate 
to  the  State  one-half  the  property  of  a  man  who  died 
childless,  leaving  his  widow  only  the  other  half ;  but  a 
legislature  of  women  would  have  annihilated  that  enor- 
mit}^  b}"  a  single  day's  work.  I  have  never  seen  rea- 
son to  believe  that  women  on  general  questions  would 
act  more  wisely  or  more  conscientiously,  as  a  rule, 
than  men  :  but  self-preservation  is  a  wonderful  quick- 
ener  of  the  brain ;  and,  in  all  questions  bearing  on 
their  own  rights  and  opportunities  as  women,  it  is 
they  who  will  prove  shrewd  and  keen,  and  men  who 
will  prove  obtuse,  as  indeed  they  have  usually  been. 

Another  point  that  adds  force  to  this  is  the  fact  that 
wherever  women,  by  their  special  position,  have  more 
at  stake  than  usual  in  public  affairs,  even  as  now  or- 
ganized, they  are  apt  to  be  equal  to  the  occasion. 
When  the  men  of  South  Carolina  were  ready  to  go  to 
war  for  the  "  States-Rights  "  doctrines  of  Calhoun,  the 
women  of  that  State  had  also  those  doctrines  at  their 
fingers'-ends.  At  Washington,  where  politics  make  the 
breath  of  life,  you  will  often  find  the  wives  of  members 


338  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

of  Congress  following  the  debates,  and  noting  every 
point  gained  or  lost,  because  these  are  matters  in  which 
they  and  their  families  are  personally  concerned  ;  and, 
as  for  that  army  of  women  employed  in  the  "  depart- 
ments ' '  of  the  government,  they  are  politicians  every 
one,  because  their  bread  depends  upon  it. 

The  inference  is,  that,  if  women  as  a  class  are  now 
unfitted  for  politics,  it  is  because  they  have  not  that 
pressure  of  personal  interest  and  responsibility  by 
which  men  are  unconsciously  trained.  Give  this,  and 
self-interest  will  do  the  rest ;  aided  by  that  power  of 
conscience  and  affection  which  is  certainly  not  less  in 
them  than  in  men,  even  if  we  claim  no  more.  A 
young  lady  of  my  acquaintance  opposed  woman  suf- 
frage in  conversation  on  various  grounds,  one  of 
which  was  that  it  would,  if  enacted,  compel  her  to 
read  the  newspapers,  which  she  greatly  disliked.  I 
pleaded  that  this  was  not  a  fatal  objection  ;  since  many 
men  voted  '•  early  and  often"  without  reading  them, 
and  in  fact  without  knowing  how  to  read  at  all.  She 
said,  in  reply,  that  this  might  do  for  men,  but  that 
women  were  far  more  conscientious,  and,  if  they  were 
once  compelled  to  vote,  the}"  would  wish  to  know  what 
they  were  voting  for.  This  seemed  to  me  to  contain 
the  whole  philosophy  of  the  matter ;  and  I  respected 
the  keenness  of  her  suggestion,  though  it  led  me  to  an 
opposite  conclusion. 


INFERIOR    TO  MAN:'  339 


LXXXIX. 

"INFERIOR   TO   MAX,  AND   NEAR   TO   ANGELS." 

If  it  were  anywhere  the  custom  to  disfranchise  per- 
sons of  superior  virtue  because  of  their  virtue,  and  to 
present  others  with  the  ballot,  simply  because  they 
had  been  in  the  State  Prison,  —  then  the  exclusion  of 
women  from  political  rights  would  be  a  high  compli- 
ment, no  doubt.  But  I  can  find  no  record  in  history 
of  any  such  legislation,  unless  so  far  as  it  is  contained 
in  the  doul:)tful  tradition  of  the  Tuscan  city  of  Pistoia, 
where  men  are  said  to  have  been  ennobled  as  a  punish- 
ment for  crime.  Among  us  crime  may  often  be  a 
covert  means  of  political  prominence,  but  it  is  not  the 
ostensible  ground ;  nor  are  people  habitually  struck 
from  the  voting-lists  for  performing  some  rare  and 
eminent  service,  such  as  saving  human  life,  or  reading 
every  word  of  a  Presidential  message.  If  a  man  has 
been  President  of  the  United  States,  we  do  not  dis- 
franchise him  thenceforward  ;  if  he  has  been  governor, 
we  do  not  declare  him  thenceforth  ineligible  to  the 
office  of  United  States  senator.  On  the  contrar}^,  the 
supposed  reward  of  high  merit  is  to  give  higher  civic 
privileges.  Sometimes  these  are  even  forced  on  un- 
willing recipients,  as  when  Plymouth  Colony  in  lGo3 
imposed  a  fine  of  twenty  pounds  on  any  one  who  should 
refuse  the  office  of  governor. 


340  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN 

It  is  utterly  contrary  to  all  tradition  and  precedent, 
therefore,  to  suppose  that  women  have  been  hitherto 
disfranchised  because  of  any  supposed  superiority. 
Indeed,  the  theory  is  self-annihilating,  and  involves  all 
supporters  in  hopeless  inconsistency.  Thus  the  South- 
ern slaveholders  were  wont  to  argue  that  a  neo^ro  was 
only  blest  when  a  slave,  and  there  was  no  such  in- 
humanity as  to  free  him.  Then,  if  a  slave  happened  to 
save  his  master's  life,  he  was  rewarded  by  emancipa- 
tion immediately,  amid  general  applause.  The  act 
refuted  the  theory.  And  so,  every  time  we  have  dis- 
franchised a  rebel,  or  presented  some  eminent  foreigner 
with  the  freedom  of  a  city,  we  have  recognized  that 
enfranchisement,  after  all,  means  honor,  and  disfran- 
chisement implies  disgrace. 

I  do  not  see  how  any  woman  can  help  a  thrill  of 
indignation,  when  she  first  opens  her  ej^es  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  really  contempt,  not  reverence,  that  has  so 
long  kept  her  sex  from  an  equal  share  of  legal,  politi- 
cal, and  educational  rights.  In  spite  of  the  duty  paid 
to  individual  women  as  mothers,  in  spite  of  the  rever- 
ence paid  by  the  Greeks  and  the  Germanic  races 
to  certain  women  as  priestesses  and  sibyls,  the  fact 
remains  that  this  sex  has  been  generally  recognized, 
in  past  ages  of  the  human  race,  as  stamped  by  hopeless 
inferiorit}",  not  b}^  angelic  superiorit3^  This  is  carried 
so  far,  that  a  certain  taint  of  actual  inferiority  is  held 
to  attach  to  women,  in  barbarous  nations.  Among 
certain  Indian  tribes,  the  service  of  the  gods  is  defiled 
if  a  woman  but  touches  the  implements  of  sacrifice ; 
and  a  Turk  apologizes  to  a  Christian  physician  for  the 
mention  of  the  womeu  of  his  family,  in  the   phrases 


"IX  FEB  ion    TO  MAX.-'  341 

used  to  soften  the  mention  of  any  degrading  creature. 
Mr.  Leland  tells  us,  that,  among  the  English  gypsies, 
any  object  that  a  woman  treads  upon,  or  sweeps  with 
the  skirts  of  her  dress,  is  destroyed  or  made  away  with 
in  some  way,  as  unfit  for  use.  In  reading  the  history 
of  manners,  it  is  easy  to  trace  the  steps  from  this 
degradation  up  to  the  point  now  attained,  such  as  it  is. 
Yet  even  the  habit  of  physiological  contempt  is  not 
gone,  as  readers  of  late  controversies  on  *•  Sex  in  Edu- 
cation ' '  know  full  well ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  any 
one  can  read  history  without  seeing,  all  around  us,  in 
society,  education,  and  politics,  the  tradition  of  inferi- 
ority. Many  laws  and  usages  which  in  themselves 
might  not  strike  all  women  as  intrinsically  worth 
striving  f.:r  —  as  the  exclusion  of  women  from  colleges 
or  from  the  ballot-l^ox  —  assume  great  importance  to 
a  woman's  self-respect,  when  she  sees  in  these  the  plain 
survival  of  the  same  contempt  that  once  took  much 
grosser  forms. 

And  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  civilized  commu- 
nities the  cj'uics,  who  still  frankly  express  this  utter 
contempt,  are  better  friends  to  women  than  the  flatter- 
ers, who  conceal  it  in  the  drawing-room,  and  onl}'  utter 
it  freely  in  the  lecture-room,  the  club,  and  the  North 
American  Review.  Contempt  at  least  arouses  pride 
and  energy.  To  be  sure,  in  the  face  of  liistory,  the 
contemptuous  tone  in  regard  to  women  seems  to  me 
untrue,  unfair,  and  dastardly ;  but,  like  any  other  ex- 
treme injustice,  it  leads  to  re-action.  It  helps  to  awaken 
women  from  that  shallow  dream  of  self-complacency 
into  which  flattery  lulls  them.  There  is  something 
tonic  in  the    manly  arrogance   of  Fitzjames   Stephen, 


342  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

who  derides  the  thought  that  the  marriage-contract  can 
be  treated  as  in  any  sense  a  contract  between  equals  ; 
but  there  is  something  that  debilitates  in  the  dulcet 
counsel  given  by  an  anon3aiious  gentleman,  in  an  old 
volume  of  the  Ladies'  Magazine  that  lies  before  me, — ■ 
"She  ought  to  present  herself  as  a  being  made  to 
please,  to  love,  and  to  seek  support ;  a  being  inferior 
to  man.,  and  near  to  angels.'" 


OBJECTIONS    TO    SUFFRAGE. 


"  "When  you  were  weak  and  I  was  strong,  I  toiled  for  you. 
Now  you  are  strong  and  I  am  weak.  Because  of  my  worlc  for 
you,  I  ask  your  aid.  I  ask  the  ballot  for  myself  and  my  sex. 
As  I  stood  by  you,  I  pray  you  stand  by  me  and  mine."  — 
Clara  Bartox. 

[Appeal  to  the  returned  soldiers  of  the  United  States,  writ- 
ten from  Geneva,  Switzerland,  by  Clara  Barton,  invalided  by 
long  service  iu  the  hospitals  and  on  the  field  during  the  civil 
war.] 


THE  FACT  OF  SEX.  345 


xc. 

THE  FACT  OF  SEX. 

It  is  constantly  said  that  the  advocates  of  woman 
suffrage  ignore  the  fact  of  sex.  On  the  contrary,  they 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  only  people  who  do  not  ignore  it. 

VTeve  there  no  such  thing  as  sexual  difference,  the 
wrong  done  to  woman  by  disfranchisement  would  be 
far  less.  It  is  precisely  because  her  traits,  habits, 
needs,  and  probable  demands  are  distinct  from  those 
of  man,  that  she  is  not,  never  was,  never  can,  and 
never  will  be,  justly  represented  by  him.  It  is  not 
merely  that  a  vast  number  of  human  individuals  are 
disfranchised ;  it  is  not  even  because  in  many  of  our 
States  the  disfranchisement  extends  to  a  majority,  that 
the  evil  is  so  great ;  it  is  not  merely  that  we  disfran- 
chise so  man}'  nnits  and  tens  :  but  we  exclude  a  special 
element,  a  peculiar  power,  a  distinct  interest,  —  in  a 
word,  a  sex. 

AThether  this  sex  is  more  or  less  wise,  more  or  less 
important,  than  the  other  sex,  does  not  affect  the  argu- 
ment :  it  is  a  sex,  and,  being  such,  is  more  absolutely 
distinct  from  the  other  than  is  any  mere  race  from  any 
other  race.  The  more  3'ou  emphasize  the  fact  of  sex, 
the  more  you  strengthen  our  argument.  If  the  white 
man  cannot  justly  represent  the  negro,  —  although  the 
two  races  are  now  so  amalgamated  that  not  even  the 


346  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

microscope  can  alwaj's  decide  to  which  race  one  be- 
longs,—  how  impossible  that  one  sex  should  stand  in 
legislation  for  the  other  sex  ! 

This  is  so  clear,  that,  so  soon  as  it  is  stated,  there  is 
a  shifting  of  the  ground.  "But  consider  the  danger 
of  introducing  the  sexual  influence  into  legislation!" 
.  .  .  Then  we  are  sure  to  be  confronted  with  the  case 
of  Miss  Vhniie  Ream,  the  sculptor.  See  how  that 
beguiling  damsel  cajoled  all  Congress  into  buying  poor 
statues  !  the}^  say.  If  one  woman  could  do  so  much, 
how  would  it  be  with  one  hundred  ?  Precisely  the  Irish- 
man's argument  against  the  use  of  pillows  :  he  had  put 
one  feather  on  a  rock,  and  found  it  a  very  uncomforta- 
ble support.  Grant,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that 
Miss  Ream  gave  us  poor  art ;  but  what  gave  her  so 
much  power?  Plainly,  that  she  was  but  a  single  feath- 
er. Congress  being  composed  exclusively  of  men,  the 
mere  fact  of  her  sex  gave  her  an  exceptional  and  dan- 
gerous influence.  Fill  a  dozen  of  the  seats  in  Congress 
with  women,  and  that  danger  at  least  will  be  cancelled. 
The  taste  in  art  may  be  no  better ;  but  an  artist  will 
no  more  be  selected  for  being  a  pretty  girl  than  now 
for  being  a  pretty  boy.  So  in  all  such  cases.  Here, 
as  everywhere,  it  is  the  advocate  of  woman  suffrage 
who  wishes  to  recognize  the  fact  of  sex,  and  guard 
against  its  perils. 

It  is  precisely  so  in  education.  Believing  bo3^s  and 
girls  to  be  unlike  ^  and  yet  seeing  them  to  be  placed  by 
the  Creator  on  the  same  planet  and  in  the  same  famil}^ 
we  hold  it  safer  to  follow  his  method.  As  tliey  are  born 
to  interest  each  other,  to  stimulate  each  other,  to  excite 
each  other,  it  seems  better  to  let  this  impulse  work  itself 


THE  FACT  OF  SEX.  347 

off  in  a  natural  wa^^,  —  to  let  in  upon  it  the  fresh  air 
and  the  daylight,  instead  of  attempting  to  suppress  and 
destroy  it.  In  a  mixed  school,  as  in  a  family,  the  fact 
of  sex  presents  itself  as  an  unconscious,  healthy,  mu- 
tual stimulus.  It  is  in  the  separate  schools  that  the 
healthy  relation  vanishes,  and  the  thought  of  sex  be- 
comes a  morbid  and  diseased  thing.  This  observation 
first  occurred  to  me  when  a  pupil  and  a  teacher  in  boys' 
boarding-schools  3'ears  ago :  there  was  such  marked 
superiority  as  to  sexual  refinement  in  the  da3'-scliolars, 
who  saw  their  sisters  and  the  friends  of  their  sisters 
every  day.  All  later  experience  of  our  public-school 
system  has  confirmed  this  opinion.  It  is  because  I 
believe  the  distinction  of  sex  to  be  momentous,  that 
I  dread  to  see  the  sexes  educated  apart. 

The  truth  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  Nature  will 
have  her  rights  —  innocently  if  she  can,  guiltily  if  she 
must ;  and  it  is  a  little  amusing  that  the  writer  of  an 
ingenious  paper  on  the  other  side,  called  "Sex  in  Poli- 
tics," in  an  able  New^  York  journal,  puts  our  case 
better  than  I  can  put  it,  before  he  gets  through,  only 
that  he  is  then  speaking  of  wealth,  not  women  :  "  Any- 
body who  considers  seriously  what  is  meant  by  the 
conflict  between  labor  and  capital,  of  which  we  are 
only  just  witnessing  the  beginning,  and  what  is  to  be 
done  to  give  money  legitiniatehj  that  influence  on  legisla- 
tion which  it  now  exercises  illegitimatel'/.  must  acknowl- 
edge at  ouce  that  the  next  generation  will  have  a  thorny 
path  to  travel."  The  Italics  are  my  own.  Precisely 
what  this  writer  wishes  to  secure  for  money,  we  claim 
for  the  disfranchised  half  of  the  human  race,  —  open 
instead  of  secret  influence  ;    the  English  tradition  in- 


348         COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

stead  of  the  French ;  women  as  rulers,  not  as  kings' 
mistresses  ;  women  as  legislators,  not  merely  as  lobby- 
ists ;  women  employing  in  legitimate  form  that  power 
which  they  will  otherwise  illegitimately  wield.  This  is 
all  our  demand. 


HOW  WILL   IT  RESULT?  349 


XCL 

HOW  WILL   IT   RESULT? 

''It  would  be  a  great  convenience,  my  hearers," 
said  old  Parson  Withiogton  of  Newbury,  ''  if  the  moral 
of  a  fable  could  only  be  written  at  the  beginning  of  it, 
instead  of  the  end.  But  it  never  is."  Commonly  the 
only  thing  to  be  done  is  to  get  hold  of  a  few  general 
principles,  hold  to  those,  and  trust  that  all  will  turn  out 
well.  Xo  matter  how  thoroughly  a  reform  may  have 
been  discussed,  — negro-emancipation  or  free-trade,  for 
instance,  —  it  is  a  step  in  the  dark  at  last,  and  the  de- 
tailed results  never  turn  out  to  be  precisely  according 
to  the  programme. 

An  "esteemed  correspondent,"  who  has  written 
some  of  the  best  things  yet  said  in  America  in  behalf 
of  the  enfranchisement  of  woman,  writes  privately  to 
express  some  solicitude,  since,  as  she  thinks,  we  are 
not  ready  for  it  yet.  "I  am  convinced,"  she  writes, 
'  •  of  the  abstract  right  of  women  to  vote  ;  but  all  I  see 
of  the  conduct  of  the  existing  women,  into  whose 
hands  this  change  would  throw  the  power,  inclines  me 
to  hope  that  this  power  will  not  be  conceded  till  edu- 
cation shall  have  prepared  a  class  of  women  fit  to  take 
the  responsibilities." 

Gradual  emancipation,  in  short  I — for  fear  of  trust- 
ing truth  and  justice  to  take  care  of  themselves.     Who 


850  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

knew,  when  the  negroes  were  set  free,  whether  they 
would  at  first  use  their  freedom  well,  or  ill?  AYould 
they  work?  would  they  avoid  crimes?  would  they  justify 
their  freedom  ?  The  theory  of  education  and  prepara- 
tion seemed  ver}^  plausible.  Against  that,  there  was 
only  the  plain  theory  which  Elizabeth  Heyrick  first 
announced  to  P^ngland,  —  "Immediate,  unconditional 
emancipation."  "The  best  preparation  for  freedom 
is  freedom."  What  was  true  of  the  negroes  then  is 
true  of  women  now. 

"The  lovelier  traits  of  womanhood,"  writes  ear- 
nestly our  correspondent,  "simplicity,  faith,  guileless- 
ness,  unfit  them  to  conduct  public  affairs,  where  one 
must  deal  with  quacks  and  charlatans.  .  .  .  We  are 
not  all  at  once  '  as  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil ; '  and 
the  very  innocency  of  our  lives,  and  the  habits  of  pure 
homes,  unfit  us  to  manage  a  certain  class  who  will  flock 
to  this  standard." 

But  the  basis  of  all  republican  government  is  in  the 
assumption  that  good  is  ultimately  stronger  than  evil. 
If  we  once  abandon  this,  our  theory  has  gone  to  pieces, 
at  any  rate.  If  we  hold  to  it,  good  women  are  no 
more  helpless  and  useless  than  good  men.  The  argu- 
ment that  would  here  disfranchise  women  has  been  used 
before  now  to  disfranchise  clergymen.  I  believe  that 
in  some  States  they  are  still  disfranchised  ;  and,  if  they 
are  not,  it  is  partly  because  good  is  found  to  be  as 
strong  as  evil,  after  all,  and  partly  because  clergymen 
are  not  found  to  be  so  angelically  good  as  to  be  use- 
less. I  am  very  confident  that  both  these  truths  will 
be  found  to  apply  to  women  also. 

Whatever  else  happens,  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that 


HOW   WILL   IT  BESULT?  351 

one  thing  will.  The  first  step  towards  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  women  will  blow  to  the  winds  the  tradition  of 
the  angelic  snperiorit}^  of  women.  Jnst  as  surely  as 
women  vote,  we  shall  have  occasionally  women  politi- 
cians,-women  corruptionists,  and  women  demagogues. 
Conceding,  for  the  sake  of  courtesy,  that  none  such 
now  exist,  they  will  be  born  as  instantaneousl3%  after 
enfranchisement,  as  the  frogs  begin  to  pipe  in  the 
spring.  Those  who  doubt  it  ignore  human  nature ; 
and,  if  they  are  not  prepared  for  this  fact,  they  had 
better  consider  it  in  season,  and  take  sides  accord ingh\ 
In  these  pages,  at  least,  the}'  have  been  warned. 

What  then?  Suppose  women  are  not  "as  gods, 
knowing  good  and  evil:  "  they  are  not  to  be  emanci- 
pated as  gods,  but  as  fallible  human  beings.  They 
are  to  come  out  of  an  ignorant  innocence,  that  may 
be  only  weakness,  into  a  wise  innocence  that  will  be 
strength.  It  is  too  late  to  remand  American  women 
into  a  Turkish  or  Jewish  tutelage  :  the}'  have  emerged 
too  far  not  to  come  farther.  In  a  certain  sense,  no 
doubt,  the  butterfly  is  safest  in  the  chrysalis.  When 
the  soft  thing  begins  to  emerge,  the  world  certainly 
sssms  a  dangerous  place  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  say  what 
will  be  the  result-  of  the  emancipation.  But  when  she 
is  once  half  out,  there  is  no  safety  for  the  pretty  crea- 
ture but  to  come  the  rest  of  the  way,  and  use  her  wings. 


352  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN, 


XCIL 

"I  II AYE   ALL   THE   RIGHTS   I   WA:N"T." 

When  Dr.  Johnson  had  pul)lished  his  English  Dic- 
tionary, and  was  asked  by  a  hidy  how  he  chanced  to 
make  a  certain  mistake  that  she  pointed  out,  he  an- 
swered, "Ignorance,  madam,  pm-e  ignorance."  I 
always  feel  disposed  to  make  the  same  comment  on  the 
assertion  of  any  woman  that  she  has  all  the  rights  she 
wants.  For  every  woman  is,  or  may  be,  or  might  have 
been,  a  mother.  And  when  she  comes  to  know  tliat 
even  now,  in  many  parts  of  the  Union,  a  married  mother 
has  no  legal  right  to  her  child,  I  should  think  her  tongue 
would  cleave  to  her  mouth  before  she  would  utter  those 
foolish  words  again. 

All  the  things  I  ever  heard  or  read  against  slavery 
did  not  fix  in  my  soul  such  a  hostility  to  it  as  a  single 
scene  in  a  Missouri  slave-market  some  twenty-five  years 
ago.  As  I  sat  there,  a  purchaser  came  in  to  buy  a 
little  girl  to  wait  on  his  wife.  Three  little  sisters  were 
brought  in,  from  eight  to  twelve  years  old  :  they  were 
mulattoes,  with  sweet,  gentle  manners  ;  they  had  evi- 
dently been  taken  good  care  of,  and  their  pink-calico 
frocks  were  clean  and  whole.  The  gentleman  chose  one 
of  them,  and  then  asked  her,  good-naturedly  enough, 
if  she  did  not  wish  to  go  with  him.  She  burst  into 
tears,  and  said,  "  I  would  rather  stay  with  my  mother." 


''I  HAVE  ALL    THE  BIGHTS   I    WANT.''    853 

But  her  tears  were  as  powerless,  of  course,  as  so  many 
salt  drops  from  the  oceau. 

That  was  all.  But  all  the  horrors  of  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  the  stories  told  me  by  fugitive  slaves,  the 
scarred  backs  I  afterwards  saw  by  dozens  among  colored 
recruits,  did  not  impress  me  as  did  that  hour  in  the  jail. 
The  whole  probable  career  of  that  poor,  wronged, 
motherless,  shrinking  child  passed  before  me  in  fancy. 
It  seemed  to  me  tliat  a  man  must  be  utterly  lost  to  all 
manly  instincts  who  would  not  give  his  life  to  overthrow 
such  a  system.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  woman  who 
could  tolerate,  much  less  defend  It,  could  not  herself  be 
true,  could  not  be  pui'e,  or  must  be  fearfully  and  grossly 
ignorant. 

You  acquiesce,  fair  lady.  You  say  it  was  horrible 
indeed,  but,  thank  God  I  it  is  past.  Past?  Is  it  so? 
Past,  if  you  please,  as  to  the  law  of  slavery,  but,  as  to 
the  legal  position  of  woman,  still  a  fearful  reality.  It 
is  not  twelve  years  since  a  scene  took  place  in  a  Boston 
court-room,  before  Chief -Justice  Chapman,  which  was 
worse,  in  this  respect,  than  that  scene  in  St.  Louis,  in- 
asmuch as  the  mother  was  present  when  the  child  was 
taken  away,  and  the  wrong  was  sanctioned  by  the  high- 
est judicial  officer  of  the  State.  Two  little  girls,  who 
had  been  taken  from  their  mother  by  their  guardian, 
their  father  being  dead,  had  taken  refuge  with  her 
against  his  wishes  ;  and  he  brought  them  into  court 
under  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus^  and  the  court  awarded 
them  to  him  as  against  their  mother.  ' '  The  little  ones 
were  very  much  affected,"  says  the  Boston  Herald,  "  by 
the  result  of  the  decision  which  separated  them  from 
their  mother ;  and  force  was  required  to  remove  them 


354  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

from  the  court-room.  The  distress  of  the  mother  was 
also  very  evident." 

There  must  have  been  some  special  reason,  you  say, 
for  such  a  seeming  outrage  :  she  was  a  bad  woman. 
No:  she  was  "a  lady  of  the  highest  respectability." 
No  charge  was  made  against  her :  but,  being  left  a 
widow,  she  had  married  again  ;  and  for  that,  and  that 
only,  so  far  as  appears,  the  court  took  from  her  the 
guardianship  of  her  own  children,  — bone  of  her  bone, 
and  flesh  of  her  flesh,  the  children  for  whom  she  had 
borne  the  deepest  physical  agony  of  womanhood,  — 
and  awarded  them  to  somebody  else. 

You  say,  "  But  her  second  husband  might  have  mis- 
used the  children."  Might?  So  the  guardian  might, 
and  that  where  they  had  no  mother  to  protect  them. 
Had  the  father  been  left  a  widower,  he  might  have 
made  a  half-dozen  successive  marriages,  have  brought 
stepmother  after  stepmother  to  control  these  children, 
and  no  court  could  have  interfered.  Tlie  father  is  rec- 
ognized before  the  law  as  the  natural  guardian  of  the 
children.  The  mother,  even  though  she  be  left  a  widow, 
is  not.  The  consequence  is  a  series  of  outrages  of  which 
only  a  few  scattered  instances  come  before  the  public ; 
just  as  in  slavery,  out  of  a  hundred  little  girls  sold  away 
from  their  parents,  only  one  case  might  ever  be  men- 
tioned in  any  newspaper. 

This  case  led  to  an  alteration  of  the  law  in  Massa- 
chusetts, but  the  same  thing  might  yet  happen  in  some 
States  of  the  Union.  The  possibility  of  a  single  such 
occurrence  shows  that  there  is  still  a  fundamental  wrong 
in  the  legal  position  of  woman.  And  the  fact  that 
most  women  do  not  know  it,  only  deepens  the  wrong 


''I  HAVE  ALL    THE  RIGHTS  I   WA^^T.^'    355 

—  as  Dr.  Channing  said  of  the  contentment  of  the 
Southern  slaves.  The  mass  of  men,  even  of  lawyers, 
pass  by  such  things,  as  they  formerly  passed  by  the 
facts  of  slavery. 

There  is  no  lasting  remed}^  for  these  wrongs,  except 
to  give  woman  the  political  power  to  protect  herself. 
There  never  3^et  existed  a  race,  nor  a  class,  nor  a  sex, 
which  was  noble  enough  to  be  trusted  with  political 
power  over  another  sex,  or  class,  or  race.  It  is  for 
self-defence  that  woman  needs  the  ballot.  And,  in  view 
of  a  single  such  occurrence  as  I  have  given,  I  charge 
that  woman  who  professes  to  have  "  all  the  rights  she 
wants,"  either  with  a  want  of  all  feeling  of  motherhood, 
or  with  "ignorance,  madam,  pure  ignorance." 


356  C02IM0N  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XCIII. 

"SENSE   EXOUGH    TO   VOTE." 

There  is  one  special  point  on  which  men  seem  to  me 
rather  insincere  toward  women.  When  they  speak  to 
women,  the  objection  made  to  their  voting  is  usually 
that  they  are  too  angelic.  But  when  men  talk  to  each 
other,  the  general  assumption  is,  that  women  should  not 
vote  because  they  have  not  brains  enough  —  or,  as  old 
Theophilus  Parsons  wrote  a  century  ago,  have  not  "  a 
sufficient  acquired  discretion." 

It  is  an  important  distinction.  Because,  if  women  are 
too  angelic  to  vote,  they  can  only  be  fitted  for  it  by 
becoming  more  wicked,  which  is  not  desirable.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  there  is  no  objection  but  the  want  of 
brains,  then  our  public  schools  are  equalizing  that  mat- 
ter fast  enough.  Still,  there  are  plenty  of  people  who 
have  never  got  beyond  this  objection.  Listen  to  the 
first  discussion  that  you  encounter  among  men  on  this 
subject,  wherever  they  maj^  congregate.  Does  it  turn 
upon  the  question  of  saintliness,  or  of  brains?  Let  us 
see. 

I  travelled  the  ,other  day  upon  the  Boston  and  Provi- 
dence Railroad  with  a  party  of  mechanics,  mostly  Eng- 
lish and  Scotch.  They  were  discussing  this  very  ques- 
tion, and,  with  the  true  English  habit,  thought  it  was 
all  a  matter  of  property,     Without  it  a  woman  certainly 


"  SEXSE  ENOUGH   TO    VOTE.''  357 

should  not  vote,  they  said  ;  but  they  all  faA-ored,  to  my 
surprise,  the  eufranchisement  of  women  of  property. 
"  As  a  general  rule,"  said  the  chief  speaker,  "  a  woman 
that's  got  propert}^  has  got  sense  enough  to  vote." 

There  it  was  I  These  foreigners,  who  had  found 
their  own  manhood  b}^  coming  to  a  land  which  not  only 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  but  the  Pilgrim  Mothers  had  settled, 
and  subdued,  and  freed  for  them,  were  still  ready  to 
disfranchise  most  of  the  daughters  of  those  mothers, 
on  the  ground  that  they  had  not  "sense  enough  to 
vote."  I  thanked  them  for  their  blunt  truthfulness, 
so  much  better  than  the  flatter}^  of  most  of  the  native- 
born. 

My  other  instance  shall  be  a  conversation  overheard 
in  a  railway-station  near  Boston,  between  two  intelli- 
gent citizens,  who  had  lately  listened  to  Anna  Dickin- 
son. "The  best  of  it  was,"  said  one,  "to  see  our 
minister  introduce  her. "  —  "  Wonder  what  the  Orthodox 
churches  would  have  said  to  that  ten  years  ago?  "  said 
the  other.  "  Never  mind,"  was  the  answer.  "  Things 
have  changed.  What  I  think  is,  it's  all  in  the  bringing 
up.  If  women  were  brought  up  just  as  men  are,  they'd 
have  just  as  much  brains."  (Brains  again  !)  "  That's 
what  Beecher  says.  Boys  are  brought  up  to  do  busi- 
ness, and  take  care  of  themselves :  that's  where  it  is. 
Girls  are  brought  up  to  dress  and  get  married.  Start 
'em  alike  !  That's  what  Beecher  says.  Start  'em  alike, 
and  see  if  girls  haven't  got  just  as  much  brains." 

"  Still  harping  on  my  daughter,"  and  on  the  condi- 
tion of  her  brains !  It  is  on  this  that  the  whole  ques- 
tion turns,  in  the  opinion  of  many  men.  Ask  ten  men 
their  objections    to  woman    suffrage.     One  will  plead 


358       coMMo:^  sexse  about  womex. 

that  women  are  angels.  Another  fears  discord  in  fami- 
lies. Another  points  out  that  women  cannot  fight,  — 
he  himself  being  very  likely  a  non-combataDt.  Another 
quotes  St.  Paul  for  this  purpose,  —  not  being,  perhaps, 
ill  the  habit  of  consulting  that  authority  on  any  other 
point.  But  with  the  others,  very  likely,  ever}'  thing  will 
turn  on  the  question  of  brains.  They  believe,  or  think 
they  believe,  that  women  have  not  sense  enough  to  vote. 
They  may  not  sa}^  so  to  women,  but  they  habitually  say 
it  to  men.  If  you  wish  to  meet  the  common  point  of 
view  of  masculine  voters,  you  must  find  it  here. 

It  is  fortunate  that  it  is  so.  Of  all  points,  this  is  the 
easiest  to  settle  ;  for  every  intelligent  woman,  even  if  she 
be  opposed  to  woman  suffrage,  helps  to  settle  it.  Every 
good  lecture  by  a  woman,  every  good  book  written  by 
one,  every  successful  business  enterprise  carried  on, 
helps  to  decide  the  question.  Every  class  of  girls  that 
graduates  from  every  good  school  helps  to  pile  up  the 
argument  on  this  point.  And  the  vast  army  of  women, 
constituting  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  teachers  in  our 
American  schools,  may  appeal  as  logically  to  their  pu- 
pils, and  settle  the  argument  based  on  brains.  "  If  we 
had  sense  enough  to  educate  you,"  they  may  say  to 
each  graduating  class  of  boys,  "  we  have  sense  enough 
to  vote  beside  you." 


AJS'  INFELICITOUS  EPITHET.  359 


XCIY. 

AN    IXFELICITOUS    EPITHET. 

"  Tlie  ladies  actively  working  to  secure  the  co-operation  of 
their  sex  in  caucuses  and  citizens'  conventions  are  not  actuated 
by  love  of  notoriety,  and  are  not,  therefore,  to  be  classed  with 
the  absolute  woman  suffragists."  — Boston  Daily  Transcript, 
Sept.  1,  1879. 

When  the  eloquent  colored  abolitionist,  Charles 
Remond,  once  said  upon  the  platform  that  George 
Washington,  having  been  a  slaveholder,  was  a  villain, 
Wendell  Phillips  remonstrated  by  saying,  "  Charles, 
the  epithet  is  not  felicitous."  Reformers  are  apt  to 
be  pelted  with  epithets  quite  as  ill-chosen.  How  often 
has  the  charge  figured  in  history,  that  they  were  "  ac- 
tuated by  love  of  notoriety"!  The  early  Christians, 
it  was  generally  believed,  took  a  positive  pleasure  in 
being  thrown  to  the  lions,  under  the  influence  of  this 
motive  ;  and  at  a  later  period  there  was  a  firm  convic- 
tion that  the  Huguenots  consented  readily  to  being 
broken  on  the  wheel,  or  sawed  in  pieces  between  two 
boards,  feeling  amply  rewarded  by  the  pleasure  of  be- 
ing talked  about.  During  the  whole  anti-slaver}^  move- 
ment, while  the  abolitionists  were  mobbed,  fined,  and 
imprisoned,  —  while  they  were  tabooed  by  good  soci- 
ety, depleted  of  their  monc}',  kept  out  of  employ- 
ment, checked  in  their  advancement,  by  the  mere  fact 


360  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

of  their  abolitionism,  — there  never  was  a  moment  when 
their  sole  motive  was  not  eonsiclered  by  many  persons 
to  be  the  love  of  notoriety.  Why  should  the  advocates 
of  woman  suffrage  expect  any  different  treatment 
now? 

It  is  not  necessary,  in  order  to  dispose  of  this  charge, 
to  claim  that  all  reformers  are  heroes  or  saints.  Even 
in  the  infancy  of  any  reform,  it  takes  along  with  it 
some  poor  material ;  and  unpleasant  traits  are  often 
developed  by  the  incidents  of  the  contest.  Doubtless 
many  reformers  attain  to  a  certain  enjo3^ment  of  a  fight, 
at  last :  it  is  one  of  the  dangerous  tendencies  which 
those  committed  to  this  vocation  must  resist.  But,  so 
far  as  my  observation  goes,  those  who  engage  in  reform 
for  the  sake  of  notoriety  generally  hurt  the  reform  so 
much  that  they  render  it  their  chief  service  when  they 
leave  it ;  and  this  happy  desertion  usually  comes  pretty 
early  in  their  career.  The  besetting  sin  of  reformers 
is  not,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  the  love  of  notoriety,  but 
the  love  of  power  and  of  flattery  within  their  own  small 
circle,  —  a  temptation  quite  different  from  the  other, 
both  in  its  origin  and  its  results. 

Notoriety  comes  so  soon  to  a  reformer,  that  its 
charms,  whatever  they  may  be,  soon  pall  upon  the 
palate,  just  as  tliey  do  in  case  of  a  popular  poet  or 
orator,  who  is  so  used  to  seeing  his  name  in  print  that 
he  hardly  notices  it.  I  suppose  there  is  no  young  per- 
son so  modest  that  he  does  not,  on  first  seeing  his  name 
in  a  newspaper,  cut  out  the  passage  with  a  certain  tender 
solicitude,  and  perhaps  purchase  a  few  extra  copies  of 
the  fortunate  journal.  But  when  the  same  person  has 
been  battered  by  a  score  or  two  of  years  in  successive 


AN   INFELICITOUS  EPITHET.  361 

unpopular  reforms,  I  suppose  that  he  not  only  would 
leave  the  paper  uncut  or  unpurchased,  but  would  hardly 
take  the  pains  even  to  correct  a  misstatement,  were  it 
asserted  that  he  had  inherited  a  fortune  or  murdered 
his  grandmother.  The  moral  is,  that  the  love  of  noto- 
riety is  soon  amply  filled,  in  a  reformer's  experience, 
and  that  he  will  not,  as  a  rule,  sacrifice  home  and  com- 
fort, mone}"  and  friends,  without  some  stronger  induce- 
ment. This  is  certainly  true  of  most  of  the  men  who 
have  interested  themselves  in  this  particular  movement, 
the  "weak-minded  men,"  as  the  reporters,  with  witty 
antithesis,  still  describe  them  ;  and  it  must  be  much  the 
same  with  the  ' '  strong-minded  women ' '  who  share 
their  base  career. 

And  it  is  to  be  remembered,  above  all,  that,  consid- 
ered as  an  engine  for  obtaining  notoriety,  the  woman 
suffrage  agitation  is  a  great  waste  of  energ}^  The 
same  net  result  could  have  been  won  with  far  less 
expenditure  in  other  ways.  There  is  not  a  woman  con- 
nected with  it  who  could  not  have  achieved  far  more 
real  publicity  as  a  manager  of  charity  fairs  or  as  a 
sensation  letter-writer.  She  could  have  done  this,  too, 
with  far  less  trouble,  without  the  loss  of  a  single 
"genteel"  friend,  without  forfeiting  a  single  social 
attention,  without  having  a  single  ill-natured  thing  said 
about  her  —  except  perhaps  that  she  bored  people,  a 
charge  to  which  the  highest  and  lowest  forms  of  promi- 
nence are  equally  open.  Nay,  she  might  have  done 
even  more  than  this,  if  notoriety  was  her  sole  aim  :  for 
she  might  have  become  a  "  variety"  minstrel  or  a  fe- 
male pedestrian  ;  she  might  have  written  a  scandalous 
novel ;  she  might  have  got  somebody  to  aim  at  her  that 


362  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    WOMEN. 

harmless  pistol,  which  has  helped  the  fame  of  so  many 
a  wandering  actress,  while  its  bullet  somehow  never 
hits  any  thing  but  the  wall.  All  this  she  might  have 
done,  and  obtained  a  notoriety  beyond  doubt.  Instead 
of  this,  she  has  preferred  to  prowl  about,  picking  up  a 
precarious  publicit}^  b}^  gi^'i"^"  lectures  to  willing  lyce- 
ums,  writing  books  for  eager  publishers,  organizing 
schools,  setting  up  hospitals,  and  achieving  for  her  sex 
something  like  equal  rights  before  the  law.  Either  she 
has  shown  herself,  as  a  seeker  after  notoriety,  to  be  a 
most  foolish  or  ill-judging  person, — or  else,  as  was 
said  of  Washington's  being  a  villain,  "  the  epithet  is 
not  felicitous." 


THE  BOB   BOY   THEOBT.  363 


xcv. 

THE   ROB   ROY  THEORY. 

The  Satukday  Review,  in  an  article  which  de- 
nounces all  equality  in  marriage-laws  and  all  plans  of 
woman-suffrage,  admits  frankh^  the  practical  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  the  process  of  voting.  "  Possibly  the 
presence  of  women  as  voters  would  tend  still  further  to 
promote  order  than  has  ])een  done  by  the  ballot."  It 
plants  itself  wholly  on  one  objection,  which  goes  far 
deeper,  thus  :  — 

"  If  men  choose  to  say  that  women  are  not  their  equals, 
women  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  give  in.  Physical  force,  the 
ukimate  basis  of  all  society  and  all  government,  must  be  on  the 
side  of  the  men;  and  those  who  have  the  key  of  the  position 
will  not  consent  permanently  to  abandon  it." 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  when  an  opponent  of  justice  is 
willing   to   fall  back  thus  frankly  upon  the  Rob  Roy 

theory :  — 

''The  good  old  rule 
Sufficeth  him,  the  simple  plan 
That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 

It  is  easy,  I  think,  to  show  that  the  theory  is  utterly 
false,  and  that  the  basis  of  civilized  society  is  not 
physical  force,  but,  on  the  contrary,  brains. 


364  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT    W02IEN. 

In  the  city  where  the  Saturday  Review  is  pub- 
lished, there  are  three  regiments  of  "Guards"  which 
are  the  boast  of  the  English  army,  and  are  believed  by 
their  officers  to  be  the  finest  troops  in  the  world.  They 
have  deteriorated  in  size  since  the  Crimean  war ;  but  I 
believe  that  the  men  of  one  regiment  still  average  six 
feet  two  inches  in  height ;  and  I  am  sure  that  nobody 
ever  saw  them  in  line,  without  noticing  the  contrast 
between  these  magnificent  men  and  the  comparatively 
pun}^  ofticers  who  command  them.  These  officers  are 
from  the  liighest  social  rank  in  England,  the  governing- 
classes  ;  and,  if  it  were  the  whole  object  of  this  mili- 
tar}^  organization  to  give  a  visible  proof  of  the  utter 
absurdity  of  the  Saturday  Review's  theor}^  it  could 
not  be  better  done.  There  is  no  countr^^  in  Europe, 
I  suppose,  where  the  hereditar}^  aristocracy  is  ph3'sically 
equal  to  that  of  England,  or  where  the  intellectual  class 
has  so  good  a  physique.  But  set  either  the  House  of 
Lords  or  the  Saturday  Review  contributors  upon  a 
hand-to-hand  fight  against  an  equal  number  of  "nav- 
vies" or  "  costermongers,"  and  the  patricians  would 
have  about  as  much  chance  as  a  crew  of  Vassar  girls 
in  a  boat-race  with  Yale  or  Harvard.  Take  the  men 
of  England  alone,  and  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that  physical  force,  instead  of  being  the  basis  of  politi- 
cal power  in  an}^  class,  is  apt  to  be  found  in  inverse 
ratio  to  it.  In  case  of  revolution,  the  strength  of  the 
governing  class  in  any  country  is  not  in  its  physical, 
but  in  its  mental  power.  Rank  and  money,  and  the 
power  to  influence  and  organize  and  command,  are 
merely  different  modifications  of  mental  training, 
brought  to  l)ear  by  somebod}'. 


THE  BOB   BOY   THE  OB  Y.  365 

In  our  countiy,  without  class  distinctions,  the  same 
truth  can  be  easily  shown.  Physical  power  lies  mainly 
in  the  hands  of  the  masses  :  wherever  a  class  or  pro- 
fession possesses  more  than  its  numerical  share  of 
power,  it  has  usually  less  than  its  proportion  of  physi- 
cal vigor.  This  is  easily  shown  from  the  vast  body  of 
evidence  collected  during  our  civil  war.  In  the  volume 
containing  the  medical  statistics  of  the  Provost  Mar- 
shal General's  Bureau,  we  have  the  tabulated  reports 
of  about  600,000  persons  subject  to  draft,  and  of 
about  500,000  recruits,  substitutes,  and  drafted  men  ; 
showing  the  precise  ph^^sical  condition  of  more  than  a 
million  men. 

It  appears,  that,  out  of  the  whole  number  examined, 
rather  more  than  257  in  each  1,000  were  found  unfit  for 
military  service.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  generally 
the  physical  power  among  these  men  is  in  inverse  ratio 
to  the  social  and  political  prominence  of  the  class  they 
represent.  Out  of  1,000  unskilled  laborers,  for  in- 
stance, only  348  are  physically  disqualified ;  among 
tanners,  only  216  ;  among  iron-workers,  189.  On  the 
other  hand,  among  lawyers,  544  out  of  1,000  are  dis- 
qualified ;  among  journalists,  740  ;  among  clergymen, 
054.  Grave  divines  are  horrified  at  the  thought  of 
admitting  women  to  vote,  when  they  cannot  fight ; 
tliough  not  one  of  twent}^  of  their  own  number  is  fit  for 
military  duty,  if  he  volunteered.  Of  the  editors  who 
denounce  woman  suffrage,  onl}^  about  one  in  four  could 
himself  carry  a  musket ;  while,  of  the  lawyers  who  till 
Congress,  the  majority  could  not  be  defenders  of  their 
country,  but  could  only  be  defended.  If  we  were  to 
distribute  political  power  with  reference  to  the  '^  phys- 


366         COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

ical  basis  "  which  the  Saturday  Review  talks  about, 
it  would  be  a  wholly  new  distribution,  and  would  put 
things  more  hopelessly  upside  down  than  did  the  worst 
phase  of  the  French  Commune.  If,  then,  a  political 
theory  so  utterly  breaks  down  when  applied  to  men, 
why  should  we  insist  on  resuscitating  it  in  order  to 
apply  it  to  women  ?  The  truth  is,  that,  as  civilization 
advances,  the  world  is  governed  more  and  more  un- 
equivocally by  brains  ;  and  whether  those  brains  are 
deposited  in  a  strong  body  or  a  weak  one  becomes  a 
matter  of  less  and  less  importance.  But  it  is  only  in 
the  very  first  stage  of  barbarism  that  mere  physical 
strength  makes  mastery  ;  and  tlie  long  head  has  con- 
trolled the  long  arm  since  the  beginning  of  recorded 
time. 

And  it  must  be  remembered  that  even  these  statistics 
very  imperfectly  represent  the  case.  They  do  not  apply 
to  the  whole  male  sex,  but  actually  to  the  picked  por- 
tion onl}^,  to  the  men  presumed  to  be  of  military  age, 
excluding  the  very  old  and  the  very  young.  AYere 
these  included,  the  proportion  unfit  for  military  duty 
would  of  course  be  far  greater.  Moreover,  it  takes  no 
account  of  courage  or  cowardice,  patriotism  or  zeal. 
How  much  all  these  considerations  tell  upon  the  actual 
proportion,  may  be  seen  from  the  fact,  that  in  the  town 
where  I  am  writing,  for  instance,  out  of  some  twelve 
thousand  inhabitants  and  about  three  thousand  voters, 
there  are  onl}^  some  three  hundred  who  actually  served 
in  the  civil  war,  —  a  number  too  small  to  exert  a  per- 
ceptible influence  on  any  local  election.  When  we  see 
the  community  yielding  up  its  voting  power  into  the 
hands  of  those  who  have   actually  done    miUtary  ser- 


THE  BOB   BOY   THE O BY.  367 

vice,  it  will  be  time  enough  to  exclude  women  for  not 
doing  such  service.  If  the  alleged  physical  basis  ope- 
rates as  an  exclusion  of  all  non-combatants,  it  should 
surely  give  a  monopoly  to  the  actual  combatants. 


;68  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XCVI. 
THE  VOTES  OF  XOX-COMBATANTS. 

The  teDclenc}"  of  modern  society  is  not  to  concentrate 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  but  to  give  a  greater  and 
greater  share  to  the  man3\  Read  Froissart's  Chroni- 
cles, and  Scott's  novels  of  chivahy,  and  j'ou  will  see 
how  thorough^  the  difference  between  patrician  and 
plebeian  was  then  a  difference  of  ph^^sical  strength. 
The  knioht,  beins;  better  nourished  and  better  trained, 
was  apt  to  be  the  bodily  superior  of  the  peasant,  to 
begin  with  ;  and  this  strength  was  re-enforced  by  armor, 
weapons,  horse,  castle,  and  all  the  resources  of  feudal 
warfare.  "With  this  greater  strength  went  naturally  the 
assumption  of  greater  political  power.  To  the  heroes 
of  "  Ivanhoe,"  or  "  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth,"  it  would 
have  seemed  as  absurd  that  j^eomen  and  lackeys  should 
have  any  share  in  the  government,  as  it  would  seem  to 
the  members  in  an  American  legislature  that  women 
should  have  any  such  share.  In  a  contest  of  mailed 
knights,  any  number  of  unarmed  men  were  but  so  many 
women.  As  Sir  Philip  Sidney  said,  "  The  wolf  asketh 
not  how  many  the  sheep  may  be." 

But  time  and  advancing  civilization  have  tended 
steadily  in  one  direction.  "  He  giveth  power  to  the 
weak,  and  to  them  who  have  no  might  He  increaseth 
strength."     Every  step  in  the  extension   of   political 


THE    VOTES   OF  XOX-COMBATANTS.      369 

rights  has  consisted  in  opening  them  to  a  class  hitherto 
humbler.  From  kings  to  nobles,  from  nobles  to  burgh- 
ers, from  burghers  to  yeomen  ;  in  short,  from  strong  to 
weak,  from  high  to  low,  from  rich  to  poor.  All  this  is 
but  the  unconscious  following-out  of  one  sure  prin- 
ciple, —  that  legislation  is  mainly  for  the  protection  of 
the  weak  against  the  strong,  and  that  for  this  purpose 
the  weak  must  be  directly  represented.  The  strong 
are  already  protected  by  their  strength  :  it  is  the  weak 
who  need  all  the  vantage-ground  that  votes  and  legis- 
latures can  oive  them.  The  feudal  chiefs  were  strono-- 
er  without  laws  than  with  them.  "  Take  care  of  3'our- 
selves  in  Sutherland,"  was  the  anxious  message  of  the 
old  Highlander :  '' the  law  has  come  as  far  as  Tain." 
It  was  the  peaceful  citizen  who  needed  the  guaranty  of 
law  against  brute  force. 

But  can  laws  be  executed  without  brute  force  ?  Not 
without  a  certain  amount  of  it,  but  that  amount  under 
civilization  grows  less  and  less.  Just  in  proportion  as 
the  masses  are  enfranchised,  statutes  execute  them- 
selves without  crossing  bayonets.  "In  a  republic," 
said  De  Tocqueville,  "if  laws  are  not  always  respect- 
able, they  are  always  respected."  If  every  step  in 
freedom  has  brought  about  a  more  peaceable  state  of 
society,  why  shf)uld  that  process  stop  at  this  precise 
point  ?  Besides,  there  is  no  possibility  in  nature  of  a 
political  division  in  which  all  the  men  shall  be  on  one 
side  and  all  the  women  on  the  other.  The  mutual  in- 
fluence of  the  sexes  forbids  it.  The  very  persons  who 
hint  at  such  a  fear  refute  themselves  at  other  times,  by 
arguing  that  "  women  will  always  be  sufficiently  repre- 
sented by  men,"  or  that  "every  woman  will  vote  as 


370  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   W02fEN. 

her  husband  thinks,  and  it  will  merely  double  the  num- 
bers." As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  law  will  prevail  in  all 
English-speaking  nations  :  a  few  men  fighting  for  it  will 
be  stronger  than  many  fighting  against  it ;  and,  if  those 
few  have  both  the  law  and  the  women  on  their  side, 
there  will  be  no  troul)le. 

The  truth  is,  that,  in  this  age,  cedant  arnia  togce :  it  is 
the  civilian  who  rules  on  the  throne  or  behind  it,  and 
who  makes  the  fighting-men  his  mere  agents.  Yonder 
policeman  at  the  corner  looks  big  and  formidable  :  he 
protects  the  women,  and  overawes  the  boys.  But  away 
in  some  corner  of  the  City  Hall,  there  is  some  quiet 
man,  out  of  uniform,  perhaps  a  consumptive  or  a  dys- 
peptic or  a  cripple,  who  can  overawe  the  burliest 
policeman  by  his  authority  as  city  marshal  or  as 
mayor.  So  an  army  is  but  a  larger  police  ;  and  its 
official  head  is  that  plain  man  at  the  White  House,  who 
makes  or  unmakes,  not  merely  brevet-brigadiers,  but 
major-generals  in  command,  —  who  can  by  the  stroke  of 
the  pen  convert  the  most  powerful  man  of  the  army 
into  the  most  powerless.  Take  away  the  occupant  of 
the  position,  and  put  in  a  woman,  and  will  she  become 
impotent  because  her  name  is  Elizabeth  or  Maria 
Theresa?  It  is  brains  that  more  and  more  govern  the 
world  ;  and  whether  those  brains  be  on  the  throne,  or 
at  the  ballot-box,  they  will  soon  make  the  owner's 
sex  a  subordinate  affair.  If  woman  is  also  strong  in 
the  affections,  so  tnuch  the  better.  "Win  the  hearts 
of  your  subjects,"  said  Lord  Burleigh  to  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, "  and  you  will  have  their  hands  and  purses." 

War  is  the  last  appeal,  and  happily  in  these  days 
the  rarest  appeal,  of  statesmanship.    In  the  multifarious 


THE    VOTES    OF  XOX-COMBATANTS.      o<l 

other  duties  that  make  up  statesmauship,  we  cannot 
spare  the  brains,  the  self-devotion,  and  the  enthusiasm, 
of  woman.  One  of  the  most  important  treaties  of 
modern  history,  the  peace  of  Cambra3%  in  1529,  was 
negotiated,  after  previous  attempts  had  failed,  by  two 
women, — Margaret,  aunt  of  Charles  Y.,  and  Louisa, 
mother  of  Francis  I.  Voltaire  said  that  Christina  of 
Sweden  was  the  only  sovereign  of  her  time  who  main- 
tained the  dignity  of  the  throne  against  Mazarin  and 
Richelieu.  Frederick  the  Great  said  that  the  Seven 
Years'  War  was  waged  against  three  women,  — Eliza- 
beth of  Russia,  Maria  Theresa,  and  Mme.  Pompadour. 
There  is  nothing  unpotent  in  the  statesmanship  of 
women  when  they  are  admitted  to  exercise  it :  they  are 
only  powerless  for  good  when  they  are  obliged  to  obtain 
by  wheedling  and  flattery  a  sway  that  should  be  recog- 
nized, responsible,  and  limited. 


372  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


XCVII. 
"IMANNERS   REPEAL   LAWS." 

There  is  in  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  a  correspond- 
ence which  is  well  worth  reading  by  both  advocates  and 
opponents  of  woman  suifrage.  Boswell,  who  was  of 
an  old  Scotch  family,  had  a  difference  of  opinion  with 
his  father  aBbiit  ^n  Entailed  estate  which  had  descended 
to  them.  Boswell  wished  the  title  so  adjusted  as  to 
cut  off  all  possibility  of  female  heirship.  His  father, 
on  the  other  hand,  wished  to  recognize  such  a  contin- 
gency. Boswell  wrote  to  Johnson  in  1776  for  advice, 
urging  a  series  of  objections,  phj^siological  and  moral, 
to  the  inheritance  of  a  family  estate  by  a  woman ; 
though,  as  he  magnanimously  admits,  "they  should  be 
treated  with  great  affection  and  tenderness,  and  alwaj^s 
participate  of  the  prosperit}^  of  the  family." 

Dr.^  Johnson,  for  a  wonder,  took  the  other  side,  de- 
fended female  heirship,  and  finally  summed  up  thus  : 
"'It  cannot  but  occur  that  women  have  natural  and 
equitable  claims  as  well  as  men,  and  these  claims  are 
not  to  be  capriciously  or  lightly  superseded  or  infringed. 
"\Vhen  fiefs  inspired  military  service,  it  is  easily  dis- 
cerned why  females  could  not  inherit  them ;  but  the 
reason  is  at  an  end.  As  manners  make  laivs,  so  man- 
ners likeidse  repeal  them.''' 

This  admu'able  statement  should  be  carefully  pen- 


MANNERS   REPEAL   LAWS.  373 

dered  by  those  who  hold  that  suffrage  sliould  be  only 
eo-exteusive  with  military  duty.  The  position  that 
woman  cannot  properly  vote  because  she  cannot  fight 
for  her  vote  efficiently,  is  precisely  like  the  position  of 
feudalism  and  of  Bos  well,  that  she  could  not  properly 
hold  real  estate  because  slie  could  not  fight  for  it. 
Each  position  may  have  had  some  plausibility  in  its 
day,  but  the  same  current  of  events  has  made  each 
obsolete.  Those  who  in  1881  believe  in  giving  woman 
the  ballot  argue  precisely  as  Dr.  Johnson  did  in  1776. 
Times  have  changed,  manners  have  softened,  education 
has  advanced,  public  opinion  now  acts  more  forcibly ; 
and  the  reference  to  physical  force,  though  still  implied, 
is  implied  more  and  more  remotely.  The  political  event 
of  the  age,  the  overthrow  of  American  slavery,  would 
not  have  been  accomplished  without  the  '•  secular  arm  " 
of  Grant  and  Sherman,  let  us  agree  ;  but  neither  would 
it  have  been  accomplished  without  the  moral  power  of 
Garrison  the  non-resistant,  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 
the  woman.  When  the  work  is  done,  it  is  unfair  to  dis- 
franchise any  of  the  participants.  Dr.  Johnson  was 
right :  "  When  fiefs  [or  votes]  implied  militar}^  service, 
it  is  easily  discerned  why  women  should  not  inherit 
[or  possess]  them  ;  but  the  reason  is  at  an  end.  As 
manners  make  laws,  so  manners  likewise  repeal  them." 
Under  the  feudal  system  it  would  have  been  absurd 
that  women  should  hold  real  estate,  for  the  next  armed 
warrior  could  dispossess  her.  By  Gail  Hamilton's 
reasoning,  it  is  equally  absurd  now:  "One  man  is 
stronger'  than  one  woman,  and  ten  men  are  stronger 
than  ten  women  ;  and  the  nineteen  millions  of  men  in 
this  country  will  subdue,  capture,  and  execute  or  expel 


374  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

the  nineteen  millions  of  women  just  as  soon  as  they  set 
about  it."  Very  well :  wh}^  then,  do  not  all  the  land- 
less men  in  a  town  unite,  and  take  awa}"  the  landed 
propert}^  of  all  the  women  ?  Simply  because  we  now 
live  in  civilized  society  and  under  a  reign  of  law  ;  be- 
cause those  men's  respect  for  law  is  greater  than  their 
appetite  for  property ;  or,  if  you  prefer,  because  even 
those  landless  men  know  that  their  own  interest  lies, 
in  the  long-run,  on  the  side  of  law.  It  will  be  precisely 
the  same  with  voting.  When  any  community  is  civil- 
ized up  to  the  point  of  enfranchising  women,  it  will  be 
civilized  up  to  the  point  of  sustaining  their  vote,  as  it 
now  sustains  their  property-rights,  by  the  whole  mate- 
rial force  of  the  community.  When  the  thing  is  once 
established,  it  will  no  more  occur  to  anybody  that  a 
woman's  vote  is  powerless  because  she  cannot  fight, 
than  it  now  occurs  to  anybody  that  her  title  to  real 
estate  is  invalidated  by  the  same  circumstance. 

Woman  is  in  the  world  ;  she  cannot  be  got  rid  of : 
she  must  be  a  serf  or  an  equal ;  there  is  no  middle 
ground.  We  have  outgrown  the  theory  of  serfdom  in  a 
thousand  ways,  and  may  as  well  abandon  the  whole. 
Women  have  now  a  place  in  society ;  their  influence 
will  be  exerted,  at  any  rate,  in  war  and  in  peace,  le- 
gally or  illegally  ;  and  it  had  better  be  exerted  in  direct, 
legitimate,  and  responsible  methods,  than  in  ways  that 
arc  dark,  and  by  tricks  that  have  not  even  the  merit  of 
being  plain. 


KILKENNY  ARGUMENTS.  375 


XCVIII. 
KILKENNY  ARGUMENTS. 

It  alwaj's  helps  a  good  cause  when  its  opponents  are 
in  the  position  of  the  famous  Kilkenny  cats,  and  mutu- 
ally eat  each  other  up.  In  the  anti-slavery  movement, 
it  was  justly  urged  that  the  slaves  might  possibly  be  (as 
slaveholders  alleged)  a  race  of  petted  children,  whose 
hearts  could  not  possibly  be  alienated  from  their  mas- 
ters ;  or  they  might  be  (as  was  also  alleged  b}^  slave- 
holders) a  race  of  fiends,  whom  a  whisper  could  mad- 
den :  but  they  could  not  well  be  both.  Every  claim 
that  the  negro  was  happ}'  was  stultified  by  that  other 
claim,  that  the  South  was  dwelling  on  a  barrel  of  gun- 
powder, and  that  the  mildest  anti-slavery  tract  meant 
fire  and  explosion.  The  twin  arguments  saved  aboli- 
tionists a  great  deal  of  trouble.  Either  by  itself  would 
have  required  an  answer ;  but  the  two  answered  each 
other,  —  devoured  each  other,  in  fact,  like  the  Kil- 
kenny cats. 

So,  whenever  the  advocates  of  woman  suffrage  are 
assailed  on  the  ground  that  women  are  too  superstitious, 
and  will,  if  enfranchised,  be  governed  by  religion  and 
the  Church  alone,  there  is  always  sure  to  come  in  some 
obliging  advocate  with  his  "Besides,  the  tendency  of 
the  movement  is  to  utter  lawlessness,  to  the  destruction 
of  religion,   the   marriage-vows,  the  home"  —  and  all 


376  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

the  rest  of  it.  The  bo}^  in  the  stoiT  is  hardly  more  self- 
coutradictory,  when,  iu  answer  to  his  friend's  appeal  for 
his  jack-knife,  he  replies,  "I  haven't  any.  Besides,  I 
want  to  use  it." 

Here,  for  instance,  is  Mr.  Nathan  N.  Withington  of 
Newbury,  Mass.,  who  in  an  address  on  woman  suffrage, 
while  waiving  many  arguments  against  it,  plants  him- 
self strongly  on  the  ground  that  it  must  be  fatal  to  the 
family.  "No  one  whose  opinion  is  worth  reckoning, 
with  whom  I  have  talked  on  the  matter,  ever  denied  en- 
tirely that  the  logical  result  of  the  movement  was  what 
is  called  free  love."  My  inference  would  be,  iu  pass- 
ing, that  m}^  old  neighbor  Mr.  Withington  must  confine 
himself  to  a  very  narrow  circle,  in  the  wa}^  of  conversa- 
tion;  or,  that  he  must  find  nobody's  opinion  "worth 
reckoning  "  if  it  differs  from  his  own.  Certainly  I  have 
talked  with  hardly  an  advocate  of  woman  suffrage  in 
New  England  who  would  not  deny  entirely  —  and 
with  a  good  deal  of  emphasis  —  any  such  assumptions 
as  he  here  makes.  But  let  that  go  :  the  subject  has 
already  been  discussed  far  more  than  its  intrinsic  im- 
portance required  ;  and  convention  after  convention  has 
taken  unnecessary  pains  to  refute  a  charge  more  base- 
less than  the  slaveholders'  fears  of  insurrection.  What 
I  wish  to  point  out  is,  that  such  charges  have,  in  one 
wa}^  great  value  :  they  precisely  neutralize  and  utterly 
annihilate  the  equally  baseless  terror  of  "  Too  super- 
stitious." 

If  it  is  true,  as  is  sometimes  alleged,  that  women  are 
constitutionally  under  the  dominion  of  religion  and  the 
Church,  then  it  is  pretty  sure,  that,  under  these  auspices, 
the  moral  restraints  of  the  communitv,  as  marrin2:e  and 


KILKEXXT  ABGUMEXTS.  377 

the  home,  will  be  maiutained.  If  it  is  true  on  the  other 
hand,  as  Mr.  AVithington  honestly  thinks,  that  the  tend- 
ency of  woman  suffrage  is  to  create  a  deluge  that  shall 
sweep  away  the  home,  then  it  is  certain  that  all  ves- 
tiges of  churchl}^  superstition  will  be  swamped  in  the 
process.  The  logical  outcome  of  the  movement  may 
l)e,  if  3'ou  please,  to  establish  the  Spanish  Inquisition  or 
to  bring  back  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  but 
it  seems  clear  that  it  cannot  simultaneously  bring  both. 
The  advocates  of  both  theories  are  equally  sincere, 
doubtless,  in  their  predictions  of  alarm  ;  but  one  set  of 
alarmists  or  the  other  set  of  alarmists  must  be  wofuUy 
disappointed  when  the  time  comes.  And,  if  either,  why 
not  both  ? 

The  simple  fact  is,  that  whosoever  draws  upon  his 
imagination,  for  possible  disasters  from  any  particular 
measure,  has  a  great  fund  at  his  disposal,  whether  he 
looks  right  or  left.  He  has  always  this  advantage  over 
the  practical  reformer,  that  whereas  the  claims  of  the 
reformer  are,  or  should  be,  definite,  coherent,  practical, 
the  opponent  can,  if  he  wishes,  have  the  whole  cloudy 
domain  of  possibility  to  draw  upou  :  he  can  marshal  an 
army  in  the  atmosphere,  while  the  practical  reformer 
must  stay  on  earth.  It  is  a  comfort  when  two  of  these 
nebulous  armies  of  imaginary  obstacles  fight  in  the  air, 
as  in  the  present  case,  like  the  shadowy  hosts  in  Kaul- 
bach's  great  cartoon ;  and  so  destroy  one  another, 
bringing  l.)ack  clear  sky. 

AVoman  needs  the  ballot  for  self-respect  and  self- 
protection,  and  to  do  her  share  for  the  education  and 
moral  safety  of  the  children  she  bears.  This  is  enough 
to  be^in  with.     In  soekino;  after  this  we  have  firm  foot- 


378  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

hold.  The  old  Eastern  fable  describes  a  certain  man 
as  finding  a  horse-shoe.  His  neighbor  soon  begins  to 
weep  and  wail,  because,  as  he  justly  points  out,  the 
man  who  has  found  a  horse-shoe  may  some  day  find  a 
horse,  and  may  shoe  him  ;  and  the  neighbor's  child  may 
some  day  go  so  near  the  horse's  heels  as  to  be  kicked, 
and  die  ;  and  then  the  two  families  may  quarrel  and 
fight,  and  several  valuable  lives  be  lost  through  that 
finding  of  a  horse-shoe.  The  gradual  advancement  of 
women  must  meet  many  fancies  as  far-fetched  as  this, 
and  must  see  them  presented  as  arguments  ;  and  we 
must  be  very  grateful  if  they  prove  Kilkenny  argu- 
ments, and  destroy  one  another. 


WOIIEN  AND  PRIESTS,  379 


XCIX. 
WOMEX  AXD   PRIESTS. 

The  chief  reason  given  by  the  Italian  radicals  for 
not  supporting  woman  suffrage  was  the  alleged  readi- 
ness of  women  to  accept  the  control  of  the  priests. 
The  same  ol)jection  has.  before  now.  been  heard  in 
other  countries, — in  France,  England,  and  America. 
John  Bright,  especial!}',  made  it  the  ground  of  his  op- 
position to  a  movement  in  which  several  members  of 
his  family  have  been  much  engaged.  The  same  point 
of  view  was  presented,  in  this  country,  several  years 
ago.  by  Mr.  Abbot  of  the  Index.  But  to  how  much, 
after  all,  does  this  objection  amount  ? 

No  one  doubts  that  the  religious  sentiment  seems 
stronger  in  women  than  in  men  ;  Ijut  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  this  sentiment  has  been  lal3oriously  encour- 
aged by  men,  while  the  field  of  action  allowed  to  women 
has  been  sedulously  cu'cumscribed,  and  her  intellectual 
education  every  wa^^  restricted.  It  is  no  wonder  if, 
under  these  circumstances,  she  has  gone  where  she  lias 
been  welcomed,  and  not  where  she  has  been  snubbed. 
Priests  were  glad  to  hail  her  as  a  saint,  while  legislators 
and  professors  joined  in  repelling  her  as  a  student  or 
a  reformer.  What  wonder  that  she  turned  from  the 
study  or  the  law-rnaking  of  the  world  to  its  religion  ? 
But  in  all  this,  whose  was  the  fault, — hers,  or  those 


380  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

who  took  charge  of  her?  If  she  did  not  trust  the 
clergy,  who  alone  befriended  her,  whom  should  she 
trust  ? 

But  observe  that  the  clerg}^  of  all  ages,  in  concen- 
trating the  strength  of  woman  on  her  religious  nature, 
have  summoned  up  a  power  that  the}'  could  not  control. 
When  they  had  once  lost  the  confidence  of  those  ruled 
by  this  mighty  religious  sentiment,  it  was  turned  against 
them.  In  the  Greek  and  Roman  worship,  women  were 
the  most  faithful  to  the  altars  of  the  gods  ;  yet,  when 
Christianity  arose,  the  foremost  martyrs  were  women. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  women  were  the  best  Catholics,  but 
they  were  afterwards  the  best  Huguenots.  It  was  a 
woman,  not  a  man,  who  threw  her  stool  at  the  offend- 
ing minister's  head  in  a  Scotch  kii'k  ;  it  was  a  woman 
who  made  the  best  Quaker  martyr  on  Boston  Common. 
And,  from  vixenish  Jenny  Geddes  to  high-minded 
Mary  Dyer,  the  whole  range  of  womanly  temperament 
responds  as  well  to  the  appeal  of  religious  freedom  as 
of  religious  slavery.  It  is  religion  that  woman  needs, 
men  say  ;  but  they  omit  to  see  that  the  strength  of 
her  religious  sentiment  is  seen  when  she  resists  her 
clerical  advisers  as  well  as  when  she  adores  them  or 
pets  them.  Frances  Wright  and  Lucretia  Mott  are 
facts  to  be  considered,  quite  as  much  as  the  matrons 
and  maids  who  work  ecclesiastical  slippers,  and  hold 
fancy  fairs  to  Send  their  favorite  clergymen  to  Europe. 

At  any  rate,  if  the  clergy  still  retain  too  much  of 
their  control,  the  evil  is  not  to  be  corrected  by  leaving 
the  whole  matter  in  their  hands.  The  argument  itself 
must  be  turned  the  other  way.  Women  need  the 
mental  training  of  science  to  balance  the  over-sympa- 


WOMEN  AND  PRIESTS.  381 

thy  of  religion  ;  they  need  to  participate  in  statesman- 
ship to  develop  the  practical  side  of  their  lives.  We 
are  outgrowing  the  sarcasm  of  the  Frenchman  who 
said  that  in  America  there  were  but  two  amusements, — 
politics  for  the  men,  and  religion  for  the  women.  AYhen 
both  women  and  men  learn  to  mingle  the  two  more 
equally,  both  politics  and  religion  will  become  some- 
thins  more  than  an  amusement. 


382  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN, 


THE   ROMAN   CATHOLIC    BUGBEAR. 

*' Those  who  wish  the  Roman  Cathohc  Church  to  subvert 
our  school  system,  control  legislation,  and  become  a  mighty 
political  force,  cannot  do  better  than  labor  day  and  night  for 
woman  suffrage.  This,  it  is  true,  is  opposed  to  every  principle 
and  tradition  of  that  great  church,  which  nevertheless  would 
reap  from  it  immense  benefits.  The  j)riests  have  little  influ- 
ence over  a  considerable  part  of  their  male  flock;  but  their 
power  is  great  over  the  women,  who  would  repair  to  the  polls 
at  the  word  of  command,  with  edifying  docility  and  zeal."  — 
Francis  Parkman  on  "  The  Woman  Question"  in  North 
American  Review,  September,  1879. 

I  AM  surprised  that  a  man  like  Mr.  Parkman,  who 
has  done  so  much  to  vindicate  the  share  of  Roman 
Catholic  priests  and  laymen  in  the  early  settlement  of 
this  continent,  should  have  introduced  this  paragraph 
into  a  serious  discussion  of  what  he  himself  recognizes 
as  an  important  question.  Here  is  the  case.  One-half 
the  citizens  of  every  State  are  unrepresented  in  the 
government :  the  ordinary  means  of  republican  influ- 
ence are  withheld  from  them,  as  they  are  from  idiots 
and  criminals.  It  is  the  rights  and  claims  of  these 
women,  as  women,  that  statesmanship  has  to  consider. 
Whether  their  enfranchisement  will  help  the  nation  or 
the  race,  as  a  whole,  is  legitimate  matter  for  argument. 
Whether   their  votes  will   temporarily  tell  for  this   or 


THE  BOM  AX   CATHOLIC  BUGBEAB.        383 

that  part}^  or  sect,  is  a  wholly  subordinate  matter,  that 
ought  not  to  be  obtruded  into  a  serious  debate.  If 
republican  government  is  not  strong  enough  to  stand 
on  its  own  principles,  if  its  fundamental  theory  must 
be  interpreted  and  modified  so  that  it  shall  work  for  or 
against  a  particular  church  or  class  of  citizens,  then  it 
is  a  worse  failure  than  even  Mr.  Parkman  represents 
it.  The  "woman  question,"  whenever  it  is  settled, 
must  be  settled  on  its  own  merits,  with  no  more  refer- 
ence to  Roman  Catholics,  as  such,  than  to  Mormons  or 
Chinese.  Having  said  this  before,  when  advocates  of 
woman  suffrage  were  presenting  the  movement  as  an 
anti-Catholic  movement,  I  can  consistently  repeat  it 
now.  when  the  movement  is  charged  with  being  uncon- 
sciously pro-Catholic  in  its  tendencies.  It  is  not  its 
business  to  be  for  or  against  any  religion  :  its  business 
is  with  principles. 

The  paragraph  throws  needless  odium  on  a  large  and 
an  insepara])le  portion  of  the  community,  — the  Roman 
Catholics.  "Aliens  to  our  blood  and  race!"  cried 
indignantly  the  orator  Shiel,  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, when  some  one  had  thus  characterized  the  Irish. 
"Heavens!  have  I  not,  upon  the  battle-field,  seen 
those  aliens  do  their  duty  to  England  ? "  It  is  too 
soon  after  the  great  civil  war  to  stigmatize,  even  by 
implication,  a  class  on  whom  we  were  then  glad  to  call. 
^Vhole  regiments  of  Roman  Catholics  were  then  called 
into  the  service  ;  Roman  Catholic  chaplains  were  com- 
missioned, than  whom  none  did  their  duty  better,  or  in 
a  less  sectarian  spirit.  In  case  of  another  war,  all 
these  would  be  summoned  to  duty  again.  We  have  no 
right,  in  reasoning  on  American  institutions,  to  treat 


384       coMMoy  sense  about  women . 

this  religious  element  as  something  b}"  itself,  an  alien 
member,  not  to  l^e  assimilated,  virtually  antagonistic  to 
republican  government.  It  has  never  proved  to  be  so 
in  Switzerland,  where  about  half  the  cantons  are  over- 
whelm iugl}^  Roman  Catholic,  and  3^et  the  federal  union 
is  preserved,  and  the  republican  feeling  is  as  strong  in 
these  cantons  as  in  any  other. 

No  doubt  there  would  be  great  objections  to  the 
domination  of  any  single  religious  body,  and  the  more 
thorough  its  organization  the  worse  ;  but  this  is  an 
event  in  the  last  degree  improbable  in  any  State  of  the 
Union.  It  is  doubtful  if  even  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  will  ever  again  be  relatively  so  powerful  as  in 
the  earl}^  years  of  our  government,  when  it  probably 
had  a  majority  of  the  population  in  three  States,  — 
]Mar3dand,  Louisiana,  and  Kentucky,  —  whereas  now  it 
has  lost  it  in  all.  It  may  be  many  years  before  w^e  again 
see,  as  we  saw  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  a  Roman 
Catholic  chief  justice  of  the  United  States  (Tanc}^). 
If  we  ever  see  this  church  come  into  greater  power,  it 
will  be  because  it  shows,  as  in  England,  such  tact  and 
discretion  and  moderation  as  to  disarm  opposition,  and 
earn  the  right  to  influence.  The  common  feeling  and 
prejudice  of  American  people  is,  and  is  likely  to  remain, 
overwhelmingly  against  it ;  and  none  know  this  better 
than  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  themselves.  They 
know  very  well  that  nothing  would  more  exasperate 
this  feeling  than  to  marshal  women  to  the  polls  like 
sheep  ;  and  this  alone  would  prevent  their  doing  it, 
were  there  no  other  obstacle. 

The  abolitionists  used  to  say  that  tlie  instinct  of  any 
class  of  oppressors  was  infallible,  and  that  if  the  slave- 


THE  BOM  AN   CATHOLIC  BUGBEAB.        385 

holders,  for  instance,  dreaded  a  certain  policy,  that 
policy  was  the  wise  one  for  the  slaves.  If  the  priests 
are  such  oppressors  as  Mr.  Parkman  thinks,  they  must 
have  the  instinct  of  that  class  ;  and  their  present  unani- 
mous opposition  to  woman  suffrage  is  sufficient  proof 
that  it  promises  no  good  to  them.  How  easy  it  is  to 
misinterpret  their  policy,  has  been  shown  in  the  school 
suffrage  matter.  It  was  confidently  stated  that  a  cer- 
tain priest  in  the  city  where  I  live,  had  demanded  from 
the  pulpit  a  certain  sum  —  two  thousand  dollars  —  to 
pay  the  poll-taxes  for  women  voters.  Most  people 
believed  it ;  yet,  when  it  came  to  the  point,  not  a 
Roman  Catholic  woman  applied  for  assessment.  It 
will  be  thus  with  Mr.  Parkman' s  fears.  AVomen  will 
ultimately  vote,  —  as  indeed,  he  seems  rather  to  expect ; 
and  the  effect  will  be  to  make  them  more  intelligent, 
and  therefore  less  likely  to  obey  the  will  of  any  man. 
Roman  Catholic  men  are  learning  to  think  for  them- 
selves ;  and  the  best  way  to  make  women  do  so  is  to 
treat  them  as  intelligent  and  responsible  beings. 


386  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


CI. 

DANGEROUS  VOTERS. 

One  of  the  few  plausible  objections  brought  against 
women's  voting  is  this :  that  it  would  demorali^ie  the 
suffrage  by  letting  in  very  dangerous  voters  ;  that  vir- 
tuous women  would  not  vote,  and  vicious  women  would. 
It  is  a  very  unfounded  alarm. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  our  institutions  rest  —  if  they 
have  any  basis  at  all  —  on  this  principle,  that  go®d  is 
stronger  than  evil,  that  the  majority  of  men  really  wish 
to  vote  rightly,  and  that  only  time  and  patience  are 
needed  to  get  the  worst  abuses  righted.  How  any  one 
can  doubt  this,  who  watches  the  course  of  our  politics, 
I  do  not  see.  In  spite  of  the  great  disadvantage  of 
having  masses  of  ignorant  foreign  voters  to  deal  with, 
—  and  of  native  black  voters,  who  have  been  purposely 
kept  in  ignorance,  —  we  certainly  see  wrongs  gradually 
righted,  and  the  truth  by  degrees  prevail.  Even  the 
one  great,  exceptional  case  of  Xew  York  City  has  been 
reached  at  last ;  and  the  A^ery  extent  of  the  evil  has 
brought  its  own  cure.  Now,  why  should  this  triumph 
of  good  over  evil  be  practicable  among  men,  and  not 
apply  to  women  also  ? 

It  must  be  either  because  women,  as  a  class,  are 
worse  than  men,  —  which  will  hardly  be  asserted,  — or 
because,  for  some  special  reason,  bad  women  have  an 


DANGEBOUS    VOTEBS.  387 

advantage  over  good  women  such  as  has  no  parallel  in 
the  other  sex.  But  I  do  not  see  how  this  can  be.  Let 
us  consider. 

It  is  certain  that  good  women  are  not  less  faithful 
and  conscientious  than  good  men.  It  is  generally  ad- 
mitted that  those  most  opposed  to  suffrage  will  very 
soon,  on  being  fulh^  enfranchised,  feel  it  their  dut}^  to 
vote.  They  may  at  first  misuse  the  right  through  ig- 
norance, but  they  certainly  will  not  shirk  it.  It  is  this 
conscientious  habit  on  which  I  rely  without  fear.  Never 
yet,  when  pul^lic  duty  required,  have  American  women 
failed  to  meet  the  emergency ;  and  I  am  not  afraid  of 
it  now.  Moreover,  when  they  are  once  enfranchised 
and  their  votes  are  needed,  all  the  men  who  now  oppose 
or  ridicule  the  demand  for  suffrage  will  begin  to  help 
them  to  exercise  it.  AVhen  the  wives  are  once  enfran- 
chised, you  may  be  sure  that  the  husbands  will  not 
neglect  those  of  their  own  household  :  they  will  provide 
them  with  ballots,  vehicles,  and  policemen,  and  will  con- 
trive to  make  the  voting-places  pleasanter  than  many 
parlors,  and  quieter  than  some  churches. 

On  tlie  other  hand,  it  seems  altogether  probable  that 
the  very  worst  women,  so  far  from  being  ostentatious 
in  their  wickedness  upon  election-day,  will,  on  the  con- 
trary, so  disguise  and  conceal  themselves  as  to  deceive 
the  very  elect,  and,  if  it  were  possible,  the  very  police- 
men. For  whatever  party  they  may  vote,  they  will 
contribute  to  make  the  voting-places  as  orderly  as 
railwa^^-stations.  These  covert  ways  are  the  very  habit 
of  their  lives,  at  least  by  daylight ;  and  the  women  who 
have  of  late  done  the  most  conspicuous  and  open  mis- 
chief in  our  community  have  done  it,  not  in  their  true 


388  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

character  as  evil,  but,  on  the  contrary,  under  a  mask 
of  elevated  purpose. 

That  women,  when  they  vote,  will  commit  their  full 
share  of  errors,  I  have  always  maintained.  But  that 
the}^  will  collectively  misuse  their  power,  seems  to  me 
out  of  the  question  ;  and  that  the  good  women  are  going 
to  stay  at  home,  and  let  bad  women  do  the  voting,  ap- 
pears quite  as  incredible.  In  fact,  if  thc}^  do  thus,  it 
is  a  fair  question  whether  the  epithets  ' '  good ' '  and 
"bad"  ought  not,  politically  speaking,  to  change 
places.  For  it  naturally  occurs  to  every  one,  on  elec- 
tion-day, that  the  man  who  votes,  even  if  he  votes 
wrong,  is  really  a  better  man,  so  far  as  political  duties 
go,  than  the  very  loftiest  saint  who  stays  at  home  and 
praj^s  that  other  people  may  vote  right.  And  it  is  hard 
to  see  why  it  should  be  otherwise  with  women. 


HOW   WOMEN    WILL   LEGISLATE.  389 


CII. 
HOW   WOMEN  WILL   LEGISLATE. 

It  is  often  said,  that,  when  women  vote,  their  votes 
will  make  no  difference  in  the  count,  because  they  will 
merely  duplicate  the  votes  of  their  husbands  and  broth- 
ers. Then  these  same  objectors  go  on  and  predict  all 
sorts  of  evil  things,  for  which  women  will  vote,  quite 
apart  from  their  husbands  and  brothers.  Moreover, 
the  evils  thus  predicted  are  apt  to  be  diametrically 
opposite.  Thus  Goldwin  Smith  predicts  that  women 
will  be  governed  by  priests,  and  then  goes  on  to  pre- 
dict that  women  will  vote  to  abolish  marriage  ;  not 
seeing,  that,  as  Professor  Cairnes  has  pointed  out, 
these  two  predictions  destroy  each  other. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  think  that  the  advocates  of 
woman  suffrage  often  err  by  claiming  too  much,  —  as 
that  all  women  will  vote  for  peace,  for  total  abstinence, 
against  slavery,  and  the  rest.  It  seems  better  to  rest 
the  argument  on  general  principles,  and  not  to  seek  to 
prophesy  too  closely.  The  only  thing  which  I  feel 
safe  in  predicting  is,  that  woman  suffrage  will  be  used, 
as  it  should  be,  for  the  protection  of  woman.  Self- 
respect  and  self-protection,  — these  are,  as  has  been  al- 
ready said,  the  two  great  things  for  which  woman  needs 
the  ballot. 

It  is  not  the  nature  of  things,  I  take  it,  that  a  class 


390        coj\aroy  sense  An  out  women. 

politically  subject  can  obtain  justice  from  the  govern- 
ing class.  Not  the  least  of  the  benefits  gained  by 
political  equality  for  the  colored  people  of  the  South  is, 
that  the  laws  now  generally  make  no  difference  of 
color  in  penalties  for  crime.  In  slavery  times,  there 
were  dozens  of  crimes  which  were  punished  more 
severely  by  the  statute  if  committed  by  a  slave  or  a 
free  negro,  than  if  done  by  a  white.  I  feel  very  sure 
that  under  the  reign  of  impartial  suffrage  we  should 
see  fewer  such  announcements  as  this,  which  I  cut 
from  a  late  Xew  York  ' '  Evening  Express  :  "  — 

"  Last  niglit  Capt.  Lowery,  of  the  Twentj^-seventh  Precinct, 
made  a  descent  upon  the  dance-house  in  the  basement  of  96 
Greenwich  Street,  and  arrested  fifty-two  men  and  eight  women. 
The  entire  batch  was  brought  before  Justice  Flammer,  at  the 
Tombs  Police  Court,  this  morning.  Louise  Maud,  the  pro- 
prietress, was  held  in  five  hundred  dollars  bail  to  answer  at 
the  Court  of  General  Sessions.  The  fifty-two  men  loere  fined 
three  dollars  each,  all  hut  twelve  paying  at  once  ;  and  the  eight 
women  were  fined  ten  dollars  each,  and  sent  to  the  Island  for 
one  month.^^ 

The  Italics  are  my  own.  When  we  reflect  that  this 
dance-house,  whatever  it  was,  was  unquestionably  sus- 
tained for  the  gratification  of  men,  rather  than  of 
women  ;  when  we  consider  that  every  one  of  these  fifty- 
two  men  came  there,  in  all  probability,  by  his  own  free 
will,  and  to  spend  money,  not  to  earn  it ;  and  that  the 
undoubted  majority  of  the  women  were  driven  there  by 
necessity  or  betraj^al,  or  force  or  despair, — it  would 
seem  that  even  an  equal  punishment  would  have  been 
cruel  injustice  to  the  women.  But  when  we  observe 
how  trifling  a  penalty  was  three  dollars  each  to  these 


now   WOMEX    WILL   LEGISLATE.  391 

men,  whose  money  was  sure  to  go  for  riotous  living  in 
some  form,  and  forty  of  whom  had  the  amount  of  the 
fine  in  their  pockets ;  and  how  hopelessly  large  an 
amount  was  ten  dollars  each  to  women  who  did  not, 
probably,  own  even  the  clothes  they  wore,  and  who 
were  to  be  sent  to  prison  for  a  month  in  addition,  — we 
see  a  kind  of  injustice  which  would  stand  a  fair  chance 
of  being  righted,  I  suspect,  if  women  came  into  power. 
Not  that  they  would  punish  their  own  sex  less  severely  ; 
probably  they  would  not :  but  they  would  put  men  more 
on  a  level  as  to  the  penalty. 

It  may  be  said  that  no  such  justice  is  to  be  expected 
from  women  ;  because  women  in  what  is  called  ' '  soci- 
ety "  condemn  women  for  mere  imprudence,  and  excuse 
men  for  guilt.  But  it  must  be  remembered,  that  in 
"society"  guilt  is  rarely  a  matter  of  open  proof  and 
conviction,  in  case  of  men  :  it  is  usually  a  matter  of 
surmise  ;  and  it  is  easy  for  either  love  or  ambition  to 
set  the  surmise  aside,  and  to  assume  that  the  worst 
reprobate  is  ''only  a  little  wild."  In  fact,  as  Margaret 
Fuller  pointed  out  years  ago,  how  little  conception  has 
a  virtuous  woman  as  to  what  a  dissipated  3'ouug  man 
really  is  !  But  let  that  same  woman  be  a  Portia,  in  the 
judgment-seat,  or  even  a  legislator  or  a  voter,  and  let 
her  have  the  unmistakable  and  actual  offender  before 
her,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  she  will  excuse  him  for 
a  paltry  fine,  and  give  the  less  guilt}^  woman  a  penalty 
more  than  quadruple. 

Women  will  also  be  sm-e  to  bring  special  spnpath}^ 
and  intelligent  attention  to  the  wrongs  of  children. 
Who  can  read  without  shame  and  indignation  this  re- 
port from  ''  The  New  York  Herald  "  ? 


392  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

THE  CHILD-SELLING  CASE. 

Peter  Hallock,  committed  on  a  charge  of  abducting  Lena 
Dinser,  a  young  girl  thirteen  years  okl,  whom,  it  was  alleged, 
her  father,  George  Dinser,  had  sold  to  Hallock  for  purposes 
of  prostitution,  was  again  brought  yesterday  before  Judge 
Westbrook  in  the  Supreme  Court  Chambers,  on  the  writ  of 
liabeas-corpus  previously  obtained  by  Mr.  William  F.  Howe, 
the  prisoner's  counsel.  Mr.  Howe  claimed  that  Hallock  could 
not  be  held  on  either  section  of  the  statute  for  abduction. 
Lender  the  first  section  the  complaint,  he  insisted,  should  set 
forth  that  the  child  was  taken  contrary  to  the  wish  and  against 
the  consent  of  her  parents.  On  the  contrary,  the  evidence,  he 
urged,  showed  that  the  father  was  a  willing  party.  Under  the 
second  section,  it  was  contended  that  the  prisoner  could  not  be 
held,  as  there  was  no  averment  that  the  girl  was  of  previous 
chaste  character.  Judge  Westbrook,  a  brief  counter  argument 
having  been  made  by  Mr.  Dana,  held  that  the  points  of  Mr. 
Howe  were  well  taken,  and  ordered  the  prisoner's  discharge. 

Here  was  a  father,  who,  as  the  newspapers  allege, 
had  previously  sold  two  other  daughters,  body  and 
soul,  and  against  whom  the  evidence  seemed  to  be  in 
this  case  clear.  Yet  through  the  defectiveness  of  the 
statute,  or  the  remissness  of  the  prosecuting  attorney, 
he  goes  free,  without  even  a  trial,  to  carry  on  his  infa- 
mous traffic  for  other  children.  Grant  that  the  points 
were  technically  well  taken  and  irresistible,  —  though 
this  is  by  no  means  certain,  —  it  is  very  sure  that  there 
should  be  laws  that  should  reach  such  atrocities  with 
punishment,  whether  the  father  does  or  does  not  con- 
sent to  his  child's'  ruin  ;  and  that  public  sentiment 
sliould  compel  prosecuting  officers  to  be  as  careful  m 
framing  their  indictments  where  human  souls  are  at 
stake  as  where  the  question  is  of  dollars  only.  It  is 
upon  such  matters  that  the  influence  of  women  will 
make  itself  felt  in  le.o-islation. 


WABNED  IN   TIME.  3^3 


cm. 

WARXED   IX   TIME. 

As  a  reform  advances,  it  draws  in  more  and  more 
people  who  are  not  immaculate.  Such  people  are  often 
found,  indeed,  among  the  very  pioneers  of  reform  ;  and 
their  number  naturalh^  increases  as  the  reform  grows 
popular.  The  larger  a  coral  island  grows,  the  more 
driftwood  attaches  itself  ;  and  the  coral  insects  might 
as  well  stipulate  that  ever}^  floating  log  should  be  sound 
and  stanch,  as  a  reform  that  all  its  converts  should  be 
in  the  highest  degree  reputable.  We  expect,  sooner  or 
later,  to  be  in  the  majority.  But  we  certainly  do  not 
expect  to  find  all  that  majority  saints. 

Yet  many  good  people  are  constantly  distressing 
themselves,  and  writing  letters  of  remonstrance,  public 
or  private,  to  editors,  because  this  or  that  unscrupulous 
person  chooses  to  join  our  army.  If  we  select  that 
person  for  a  general,  we  are  doubtless  to  be  held  re- 
sponsible ;  but  for  nothing  else.  People  may  indeed 
say  —  and  justly  —  that  every  such  all}^  brings  suspi- 
cion upon  us.  Very  likel}^ ;  then  we  must  work  harder 
to  avert  suspicion.  People  ma}^  urge  that  no  reform 
was  ever  watched  so  anxiously  as  this,  for  its  effect  on 
female  character  especially,  and  that  a  single  discred- 
itable instance  may  do  incalculable  harm.  No  doubt. 
And  yet,  after  all,  we  are  to  work  with  human  means 


394  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

and  under  human  limitations  ;  and  God  accomplishes 
much  good  in  this  world  through  rather  poor  instru- 
ments —  such  as  3'ou  and  me. 

I  have  no  manner  of  doubt  that  the  great  majority 
of  those  who  take  up  this  movement  will  do  it  from 
tolerabl}^  pure  motives,  and  will,  on  the  whole,  do  credit 
to  it  by  their  personal  demeanor.  But  of  course  there 
will  be  exceptions,  —  hypocrites,  self-seekers,  and  black 
sheep  generally.  Horace  Maun  used  to  sa}^  that  the 
clergy  were,  on  the  whole,  pure  men  ;  but  that  some 
of  the  worst  men  in  every  age  and  place  were  always 
found  among  the  .clergy  also,  —  taking  that  disguise  as 
a  cloak  for  wickedness.  For  "clergy"  in  this  case 
read  ' '  reformers. ' ' 

And  there  is  this  special  good  done,  in  a  reform,  by 
the  sinners  who  take  hold  of  it,  that  they  warn  us  in 
time  that  all  reform  is  limited  by  the  imperfections  of 
average  humanit}'.  The  theor}^  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  a  sublime  one,  — that  every  pope  should  be 
a  saint ;  but  it  is  limited  by  the  practical  difficulty  of 
securing  a  sufficient  supply  of  the  article.  So  it  is 
with  the  woman  suffrage  movement.  "  AVould  it  not 
be  desirable,"  write  enthusiastic  correspondents,  "that 
every  woman  in  this  sacred  enterprise  should  have  a 
heart  free  from  guile  ?  ' '  Perhaps  not.  The  plan  looks 
attractive  certainl}'  ;  but  would  there  not  be  this  ob- 
jection, that,  could  3^ou  enlist  this  regiment  of  perfect 
beings,  thc}^  would  ^give  a  very  false  impression  of  the 
sex  for  which  thc}^  stand?  If  women  are  not  all  saints, 
- — if  they  are  capable,  like  men,  of  selfishness  and 
ambition,  malice  and  falsehood,  —  it  is  of  great  impor- 
tance that  we  should  Ije  warned  in  time.     Better  see 


WARNED   IX   TIME.  395 

their  faults  now,  and  enfranchise  them  with  our  eyes 
open,  than  enfranchise  them  as  angels,  and  then  be 
dismayed  when  they  turn  out  to  be  human  beings. 

There  is  no  use  in  carrying  this  reform,  or  any 
other,  on  mistaken  expectations.  Multitudes  of  per- 
sons are  looking  to  woman  suffrage,  mainly  as  a  means 
of  elevating  politics.  Every  woman  who  awakens  dis- 
trust or  contempt  damps  the  ardor  of  these  persons. 
It  is  a  misfortune  that  the}^  should  be  discouraged ; 
but,  if  they  have  idealized  woman  too  much,  they  may 
as  well  be  disenchanted  first  as  last.  Woman  does  not 
need  the  ballot  chiefly  that  she  may  take  it  in  her 
hands,  and  elevate  man  ;  but  she  needs  it  primarily  for 
her  own  defence,  just  as  men  need  it.  Which  will  use 
it  best,  who  can  say  ?  Women  are  doubtless  less  sen- 
sual than  men  ;  but  the  sensual  vices  are  the  very  least 
of  the  vices  that  corrupt  our  politics.  Selfishness,  envy, 
jealousy,  vanity,  cowardice,  bigotry,  caste-prejudice, 
recklessness  of  assertion, — these  are  the  traits  that 
demoralize  our  public  men.  Is  there  any  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  women  are,  on  the  whole,  more  free  from 
these?  If  not,  we  may  as  well  know  it  by  visible, 
though  painful,  examples.  Knowing  it,  we  may  take 
a  reasonable  view  of  woman,  and  legislate  for  her  as 
she  is.  I  do  not  believe  with  Mrs.  Croly,  that  ''  women 
are  nearly  all  treacherous  and  cruel  to  each  other;" 
but  I  believe  that  they  are,  as  Gen.  Saxton  described 
the  negroes,  ''  intensely  human,"  and  that  we  may  as 
well  be  warned  of  this  in  time. 


396  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   JVOMEN. 


CIV. 

INDIVIDUALS   vs.   CLASSES. 

As  the  older  arguments  against  woman  suffrage  are 
abandoned,  we  hear  more  and  more,  of  the  final  objec- 
tion, that  the  majority  of  women  have  not  yet  expressed 
themselves  on  the  subject.  It  is  common  for  such  rea- 
soners  to  make  the  remark,  that  if  they  knew  a  given 
number  of  women  — say  fifty,  or  a  hundred,  or  five 
hundred  — who  honestly  wished  to  vote,  they  would 
favor  it.  Produce  that  number  of  unimpeachable 
names,  and  they  say  that  they  have  reconsidered  the 
matter,  and  must  demand  more,  —  perhaps  ten  thou- 
sand. Bring  ten  thousand,  and  the  demand  again 
rises.  "Prove  that  the  majority  of  women  wish  to 
vote,  and  they  shall  vote."  —  "Precisely,"  we  say: 
"  give  us  a  chance  to  prove  it  by  taking  a  vote  ;"  and 
they  answer,  "By  no  means." 

And,  in  a  certain  sense,  they  are  right.  It  ought  not 
to  be  settled  that  way,  —  by  dealing  with  woman  as  a 
class,  and  taking  the  vote.  The  agitators  do  not  merely 
claim  the  right  of  suffrage  for  her  as  a  class  :  they  claim 
it  for  each  individual  woman,  without  reference  to  any 
other.  Class  legislation  —  as  Mary  Ann  in  Bret  Harte's 
' '  Lothaw  ' '  says  of  Brook  Fann  —  "is  a  thing  of  the 
past."  If  there  is  only  one  woman  in  the  nation  who 
claims  the  right  to  vote,  shl*  ought  to  have  it. 


INDIVIDUALS    VS.    CLASSES.  397 

In  Oriental  countries  all  legislation  is  for  classes, 
and  in  England  it  is  still  mainly  so.  A  man  is  expected 
to  remain  in  the  station  in  which  he  is  born  ;  oi\  if  he 
leaves  it,  it  is  by  a  distinct  process,  and  he  comes  under 
the  influence,  in  various  waj^s,  of  different  laws.  If 
the  iniquities  of  the  "Contagious  Diseases"  act  in 
England,  for  instance,  had  not  been  confined  in  their 
legal  application  to  the  lower  social  grades,  the  act 
would  never  have  passed.  It  was  easy  for  men  of  the 
higher  classes  to  legislate  away  the  modesty  of  women 
of  the  lower  classes  ;  but  if  the  daughter  of  an  earl 
could  have  been  arrested,  and  submitted  to  a  surgical 
examination  at  the  will  of  any  policeman,  as  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  mechanic  now  can,  the  law  would  not  have 
stood  a  day.  So,  through  all  our  slave  States,  there 
was  class  legislation  for  every  person  of  negro  blood : 
the  laws  of  crime,  of  punishment,  of  testimony,  were  all 
adapted  to  classes,  not  individuals.  Emancipation 
swept  this  all  away,  in  most  cases  :  classes  ceased  to 
exist  before  the  law,  so  far  as  men  at  least  were  con- 
cerned ;  there  were  onl}^  individuals.  The  more  prog- 
ress, the  less  class  in  legislation.  We  claim  the  appli- 
cation of  this  principle  as  rapidly  as  possible  to  women. 

Our  community  does  not  refuse  permission  for 
women  to  go  unveiled  till  it  is  proved  that  the  majority 
of  women  desire  it ;  it  does  not  even  ask  that  question  : 
if  one  woman  wishes  to  show  her  face,  it  is  allowed.  If 
a  woman  wishes  to  travel  alone,  to  walk  the  streets 
alone,  the  police  protects  her  in  that  liberty.  She  is 
not  thrust  back  into  her  house  with  the  reproof,  *•'  My 
dear  madam,  at  this  particular  moment  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  women  are  in-doors  :  prove  that  they 


398  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

all  wish  to  come  out,  and  you  shall  come."  On  the 
contrary,  she  comes  forth  at  her  own  sweet  will :  the 
policeman  helps  her  tenderl}^  across  the  street,  and 
waves  back  with  imperial  gesture  the  obtrusive  coal- 
cart.  Some  of  us  claim  for  each  individual  woman,  in 
the  same  way,  not  merely  the  right  to  go  shopping,  but 
to  go  voting  ;  not  merely  to  show  her  face,  but  to  show 
her  hand. 

There  will  always  be  many  women,  as  there  are  many 
men,  who  are  indifferent  to  voting.  For  a  time, 
perhaps  always,  there  will  be  a  larger  percentage 
of  this  indifference  among  women.  But  the  natural 
right  to  a  share  in  the  government  under  which  one 
lives,  and  to  a  voice  in  making  the  laws  under  which 
one  may  be  hanged,  —  this  belongs  to  each  woman  as 
an  individual ;  and  she  is  quite  right  to  claim  it  as  she 
needs  it,  even  though  the  majority  of  her  sex  still  pre- 
fer to  take  their  chance  of  the  penalty,  without  per- 
plexing themselves  about  the  law.  The  demand  of 
every  enlightened  woman  who  asks  for  the  ballot  — 
like  the  demand  of  every  enlightened  slave  for  free- 
dom —  is  an  individual  demand ;  and  the  question 
whether  they  represent  the  majority  of  their  class  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  For  a  republic  like  ours  does 
not  profess  to  deal  with  classes,  but  with  individuals  ; 
since  "  the  whole  people  covenants  with  each  citizen,  and 
each  citizen  with  the  whole  people,  for  the  common 
good,"  as  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts  says. 

And,  fortunatel}^  there  is  such  power  in  an  indi- 
vidual demand  that  it  appeals  to  thousands  whom  no 
abstract  right  touches.  Five  minutes  with  Frederick 
Douglass    settled    the    question,    for    any    thoughtful 


INDTVTDUALS    VS.    CLASSES.  399 

person,  of  that  man's  right  to  freedom.  Let  any 
woman  of  position  desire  to  enter  what  is  called  •  •  the 
lecture-field,"  to  support  herself  and  her  children,  and 
at  once  all  abstract  objections  to  women's  speaking  in 
public  disappear :  her  friends  may  be  never  so  hostile 
to  "  the  cause."  but  they  espouse  her  individual  cause  ; 
the  most  conservative  clergj'man  subscribes  for  tickets, 
but  begs  that  his  name  may  not  be  mentioned.  They 
do  not  admit  that  women,  as  a  class,  should  speak,  — 
not  they  ;  but  for  this  individual  woman  they  throng 
the  hall.  Mrs.  Dahlgren  abhors  politics  :  a  woman  in 
Congress,  a  woman  in  the  committee-room,  — what  can 
be  more  objectionable?  But  I  observe,  that,  when 
Mrs.  Dahlgren  wishes  to  obtain  more  profit  by  her 
husband's  inventions,  all  objections  vanish :  she  can 
appeal  to  Congressmen,  she  can  address  committees, 
she  can,  I  hope,  prevail.  The  individual  ranks  first  in 
our  sympathy :  we  do  not  wait  to  take  the  census  of 
the  ''  class."  Make  way  for  the  individual,  whether  it 
be  Mrs.  Dahlgren  pleading  for  the  rights  of  property, 
or  Lucy  Stone  pleading  for  the  rights  of  the  mother 
to  her  child. 


400  COMMON   SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 


cv. 

DEFEATS   BEFORE   VICTORIES. 

After  one  of  the  early  defeats  in  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion,  the  commander  of  a  Massachusetts  regiment 
wrote  home  to  his  father :  "I  wish  people  would  not 
write  us  so  man}^  letters  of  condolence.  Our  defeat 
seemed  to  trouble  them  much  more  than  it  troubles  us. 
Did  people  suppose  there  were  to  be  no  ups  and  downs  ? 
"We  expect  to  lose  plenty  of  battles,  but  we  have  enlisted 
for  the  war. ' ' 

It  is  just  so  with  every  successful  reform.  While 
enemies  and  half-friends  are  proclaiming  its  defeats, 
those  who  advocate  it  are  rejoicing  that  they  have  at 
last  got  an  army  into  the  field  to  be  defeated.  Unless 
this  war  is  to  be  an  exception  to  all  others,  even  the 
fact  of  having  joined  battle  is  a  great  deal.  It  is  the 
first  step.  Defeat  first ;  a  good  many  defeats,  if  you 
please  :  victory  by  and  by. 

William  Wilberforce,  writing  to  a  friend  in  the  year 
1817,  said,  •'  I  continue  faithful  to  the  measure  of  Par- 
liamentary reform  l^rought  forward  by  Mr.  Pitt.  I  am 
firmly  persuaded  that  at  present  a  prodigious  majority 
of  the  people  of  this  country  are  adverse  to  the  meas- 
ure. In  my  view,  so  far  from  being  an  objection  to 
the  discussion,  this  is  rather  a  recommendation."  In 
1832  the  reform-bill  was  passed. 


DEFEATS   BEFOIiE    VICTORIES..  401 

In  the  first  Parliamentary  debate  on  the  slave-trade, 
Col.  Tarletou,  who  boasted  to  have  killed  more  men 
than  any  one  in  England,  pointing  to  AVilberforee  and 
others,  said,  "The  inspiration  began  on  that  side  of 
the  house  ;  "  then  turning  round,  "  The  revolution  has 
reached  to  this  also,  and  reached  to  the  height  of  fanat- 
icism and  frenzy."  The  first  vote  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  1790,  after  arguments  in  the  affirmative 
by  Wilberforce,  Pitt,  Fox,  and  Burke,  stood,  ayes,  88  ; 
noes,  163  :  majority  against  the  measure,  75.  In  1807 
the  slave-trade  was  abolished,  and  in  1834  slavery  in 
the  British  colonies  followed  ;  and  even  on  the  very 
night  when  the  latter  bill  passed,  the  abolitionists  were 
taunted  by  Gladstone,  the  great  Demerara  slave- 
holder, with  having  toiled  for  forty  years  and  done 
nothing.  The  Roman  Catholic  relief-bill,  establishing 
freedom  of  thought  in  England,  had  the  same  experi- 
ence. It  passed  in  1829  by  a  majority  of  a  hundred 
and  three  in  the  House  of  Lords,  which  had  nine 
months  before  refused  by  a  majority  of  forty-five  to 
take  up  the  question  at  all. 

The  English  corn-laws  went  down  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago,  after  a  similar  career  of  failures.  In 
1840,  there  were  hundreds  of  thousands  in  England 
who  thought  that  to  attack  the  corn-laws  was  to  attack 
the  very  foundations  of  society.  Lord  Melbourne,  the 
prime  minister,  said  in  Parliament,  that  "  he  had  heard 
of  man}"  mad  things  in  his  life,  but,  before  God,  the 
idea  of  repealing  the  corn-laws  was  the  very  maddest 
thing  of  which  he  had  ever  heard."  Lord  John  Russell 
counselled  the  House  to  refuse  to  hear  evidence  on  the 


402  COMMON  SENSE  ABOUT   WOMEN. 

operation  of  the  corn-laws.  Six  years  after,  in  1846, 
they  were  abolished  forever. 

How  Wendell  Phillips,  in  the  anti-slavery  meetings, 
used  to  lash  pro-slavery  men  with  such  formidable  facts 
as  these,  —  and  to  quote  how  Clay  and  Calhoun  and 
Webster  and  Everett  had  pledged  themselves  that 
slavery  should  never  be  discussed*  or  had  proposed 
that  those  who  discussed  it  should  be  imprisoned,  — 
while,  in  spite  of  them  all,  the  great  reform  was  mov- 
ing on,  and  the  abolitionists  were  forcing  politicians 
and  people  to  talk,  like  Sterne's  starling,  nothing  but 
slavery ! 

We  who  were  trained  in  the  light  of  these  great  agi- 
tations have  learned  their  lesson.  We  expect  to  march 
through  a  series  of  defeats  to  victory.  The  first  thing 
is,  as  in  the  anti-slavery  movement,  so  to  arouse  the 
public  mind  as  to  make  this  the  central  question.  Given 
this  prominence,  and  it  is  enough  for  this  year  or  for 
many  years  to  come.  Wellington  said  that  there  was 
no  such  tragedy  as  a  victory,  except  a  defeat.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  next  best  thing  to  a  victory  is  a  defeat, 
for  it  shows  that  the  armies  are  in  the  field.  Without 
the  unsuccessful  attempt  of  to-day,  no  success  to- 
morrow. 

When  Mrs.  Frances  Anne  Kemble  came  to  this  coun- 
try, she  was  amazed  to  find  Americans  celebrating  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  which  she  had  always  heard 
claimed  as  a  victory  for  King  George.  Such  it  was 
doubtless  called  ;  but  what  we  celebrated  was  the  fact 
that  the  Americans  there  threw  up  breastworks,  stood 
their    ground,    fired    away   their    ammunition,  —  and 


DEFEATS  BEFORE    VICTOBIES.  403 

were  defeated.  And  thus  the  reformer,  looking  at 
his  faihires,  often  sees  in  them  such  a  step  forward, 
that  they  are  the  Bunker  Hill  of  a  new  revolution. 
Give  us  plenty  of  such  defeats,  and  we  can  afford  to 
wait  a  score  of  years  for  the  victories.  They  will 
come. 


young  folks' 
History  of  the  United  States. 

BY 

THOMAS   WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON. 


■With  Maps  and  Illustrations,  an  Appendix  covering  a  List  of  Books 
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The  distinctive  character  of  the  book  is  that  it  sets  before  the  mind  of  the 
student  a  clear  idea  of  what  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  been  from 
their  first  settlement  on  this  continent  to  the  present  day.  Names  and  dates 
are  not  considered  by  the  author  to  be  of  importance,  save  in  so  far  as  they 
serve  to  make  fully  definite  the  tliread  of  connected  incident. 

Again,  less  than  the  usual  space  is  devoted  to  the  events  of  war,  and 
more  to  the  affairs  of  peace.  In  this  manner,  two  of  the  main  objections  to 
a  condensed  school  history  of  the  United  States  are  obviated,  and  the  mind 
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philosophical  view  of  the  causes  which  have  produced  our  American 
civilization. 

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his  narrative  with  illustrative  traits  and  incidents  taken  from  the  daily  life 
of  the  people. 

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the  arts  of  life,  their  struggles  with  nature  in  reclaiming  the  wilderness  as 
a  habitation  for  man,  and  their  striving  toward  a  higher  and  nobler  form 
of  social  and  political  constitution — these  points  are  on  every  page  of  the 
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